GigaOM » ThinkNear

Telenav acquires NY TechStars grad ThinkNear for $22.5M

Ryan Kim — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 13:18:36 +0000

Telenav announced it is paying $22.5 million to acquire ThinkNear, a hyperlocal mobile ad startup that helps target consumers with very precise and contextual location-based ads. It’s the first acquisition of a New York TechStars graduate and the biggest acquisition for any TechStars alum.

ThinkNear, which moved to Los Angeles after graduating from TechStars in 2011, is joining Telenav’s mobile local advertising group and will form a new platform for Telenav called Scout Advertising. Now, advertisers will be able to use ThinkNear’s location targeting to reach consumers within 100 meters of any location. But the ads will tap Telenav’s Drive-To Advertising platform to provide browser-based GPS turn-by-turn directions to lead the person to the place that’s being advertised. That’s important for advertisers who want to measure their advertising ROI because they can see if someone arrives at a place after seeing an ad.

ThinkNear began life in early 2011 as yield management tool for local businesses, who wanted to use local mobile ads to drive in people at slow times. ThinkNear tried that route but found it difficult to get enough impressions to deliver to merchants. So it pivoted into a hyperlocal advertising company that aggregated location-based impressions from exchanges, mediation platforms and ad networks.

It also added the ability to do situational targeting, taking into account what consumers are doing nearby, where they are, what the conditions and environment is like around them. ThinkNear now serves dozens of brands and delivers click-through rates four times higher than the average, said Eli Portnoy, founder and CEO.

“I thought this was a fantastic opportunity to combine what we’re doing with what Telenav is doing with browser-based turn-by-turn software. Together, we can reach people at the right time and get them to the store,” Portnoy told me in an interview

Portnoy believes that hyperlocal advertising is proving its worth now and will be a major boost for mobile advertising revenue, which has lagged mobile usage. The company now reaches tens of millions of customers each month with more than seven billion impressions.

ThinkNear, which has 12 employees, has raised $1.7 million to date from Google Ventures, Qualcomm Ventures, IA Ventures and Metamorphic Ventures.

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Hyperlocal: opportunities for publishers and developers

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 21:19:17 +0000

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The future of mobile: a segment analysis by GigaOM Pro

Mon, 26 Sep 2011 07:01:22 +0000

As our demand for data increases, so too do the number of mobile devices and services. Add to that the infrastructure needed to support such connectivity, and a wide, complex picture of the mobile industry emerges. This report examines the various sectors of the mobile landscape and what the future holds for each. Hardware, cloud services, mobile search, advertising, location-based services and the growing ubiquity of the Internet of Things will all play an important role in the concept of mobility as it shifts and evolves over the next several years. With the help of more than a dozen contributors, GigaOM Pro presents a comprehensive analysis of the companies and trends that will lead us into the next era of mobile.

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ThinkNear gets $1.6M to bring real-time analytics to local businesses

Ryan Kim — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 18:00:11 +0000

ThinkNear, a Los Angeles– and New York–based startup, caught my eye at the New York TechStars demo day with its data-driven approach to solving problems for local businesses. The company announced on Tuesday that it raised $1.6 million in seed financing from a gaggle of investors, including Google Ventures, IA Ventures, Qualcomm Ventures and angels David Tisch and David Cohen of TechStars, to help roll out their technology. That rollout got under way in New York on Tuesday. Other investors include Metamorphic Ventures, Real Ventures, ff Venture Capital, Zelkova Ventures and BoldStart VC.

The company’s approach is smart. It’s trying to tackle off-peak slow periods for local businesses, working to drive sales in those hours when foot traffic is light. That’s different from competitors like Groupon or others who often load up businesses at peak times, which can overwhelm them, limiting how much product they can move at one time.

ThinkNear is an automated system that lets businesses set their goals, input their historical slow times and how much they want to discount their products. Then ThinkNear pulls in a wealth of data from the store, and locally relevant information like weather, events and traffic to help figure out when a location needs more business. The system can push out location-based ads with discounts that are good for a limited time to help improve traffic during specific periods. Users then theoretically come in and present a code to redeem their discount, helping the merchant track the success of the program. ThinkNear also monitors the effectiveness of the ads to tune its future promotions.

Not only does ThinkNear have the potential to bolster traditionally slow periods, it’s also very simple to use for merchants. Many business owners are being asked to manage their online presence and work with sales teams to craft multiple discounts. They’re being called on constantly by sales people looking to tap their local ad budget. ThinkNear is more of a set-it and forget it solution, so merchants don’t have to manage it closely. It still has to produce results to be useful, but at least merchants are spared considerable logistical headaches.

Another of ThinkNear’s strengths is that it’s very data driven. Founder and CEO Eli Portnoy declines to go deep into the “secret sauce” of ThinkNear’s technology, but it’s leveraging real-time data analytics to really figure out the optimal times to run promotions. For example, an ice cream store may not need to push deals on a hot day, but if the temperature drops quickly or it rains, a timely discount can help propel sales. According to Portnoy:

Everyone understand mobile and local are happening and there is a convergence of the online and offline world, but everyone is focusing on taking the online world and stuffing it into the offline world. We’re taking an analytical, quantitative data-driven methodology from the web and taking it to local businesses. That’s our real mission in life.

ThinkNear CEO Eli Portnoy

Portnoy said the $1.6 million will go toward expanding the team of four employees and building out the launch in New York, where a number of businesses have already signed up. He said the next city is Los Angeles, where he believes he’ll be able to test the service on a metro area that represents the rest of the country better than San Francisco.

ThinkNear still has its work cut out for it trying to market its technology to businesses. That’s going to be hard for a small startup, when there are thousands of sales people calling on business owners. But if the start-up can get its foot in the door, I think businesses will see a lot of value in ThinkNear.

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