advertising inventory, today announced the formation of Savveo, Inc. -
a new venture designed to transform the way local advertising is
bought and sold, headquartered in Charlotte. An evolution of the
OverstockAds.com experience, the Savveo website, when open to the
public later this year, will serve as an online marketplace to bring
long-overdue efficiencies to the $445 billion local advertising market.
"Local advertising is one of the most effective ways for businesses to
reach their prospective customers, but the way it's done today is
wildly inefficient and frustrating," said Shafi Mustafa, CEO of Savveo
and founder of OverstockAds.com (left in photo). "There are more than
34,000 local media outlets in the U.S., but would-be advertisers -
whether businesses or ad agencies - don't have anywhere to go for a
single, consolidated view of the advertising outlets available to
them, and they certainly don't have a single place to go to buy and
track advertising across those outlets. That's the problem Savveo
solves."
A derivation of the word "savvy," Savveo is rooted in the success of
OverstockAds.com, and will provide users with actionable intelligence
on a wide range of advertising inventory across channels, including
out- of-home, print, radio and television. Savveo represents the
culmination of research into a pressing industry need, as well as
feedback from OverstockAds.com's user base, and its more than 500
current regional and national media partners. In addition to
streamlining the ad buying process for users, Savveo's website will
also drive efficiencies for media companies - positively impacting
both their bottom line and their advertisers' buying experiences.
While unveiling plans for the new venture, Mustafa also announced
investors in a $2.0 million round of Series A funding, which will help
accelerate Savveo's development. Investors include Tim Biltz, chairman
of Savveo's board of directors and CEO of Lumos Networks; Sayoko
Teitelbaum, co-founder of Toura; Simon Clark, senior partner at Engine
UK; David Jones, CEO of Peak 10; and Baycrest Capital, along with a
select group of U.S.-based and international investors.
Complementing the roster of blue chip investors is a strong management
team led by Mustafa, who was also previously a partner at SMMC Studios
and a managing director at KEA Marketing & Advertising. Mustafa is
joined by co-founder Steve Villa (right in photo), who will serve as
president of Savveo, and was previously CEO of Muzak and CFO of Frisby
Technologies. Key engineering and operations personnel include start-
up veterans hailing from companies including EMC, RSA, Terracotta and
DataTools.
"The opportunity here is enormous," said Villa. "In 2011, the total
global expenditure on local advertising was almost $450 billion. In
the U.S. alone, it topped $137 billion. To date, no one has done the
hard work to aggregate, categorize and productize that ad inventory -
especially the offline ad inventory which accounts for 91 percent of
the spend. We believe the market will amply reward the first company
that does so, and we intend for Savveo to be that company."
Savveo is headquartered in Charlotte, N.C., with a development office
in San Mateo, Calif. Additional details about the company will be
shared when it publicly unveils the Savveo online marketplace later
this year. To receive updates and additional information, please
register at www.savveo.com.
About Savveo
Savveo, Inc. is transforming the way local advertising is bought and
sold. Addressing the inefficiencies of the $445 billion local
advertising industry, Savveo will give businesses and agencies a
single, easy-to-use online marketplace through which they can identify
and compare advertising options across channels - including out-of-
home, print, radio, television, sponsorships and non-traditional - as
well as purchase and track campaigns. Headquartered in Charlotte,
N.C., with development offices in Silicon Valley, Savveo was founded
in 2012 by ad agency executives who had, themselves, wrestled with the
complexities of planning and executing local advertising initiatives.
For additional information about Savveo, please visit www.savveo.com
and follow us on Twitter @gosavveo.
