Yext is an online yellow pages service that sells click to ads. The company claims that they have 20,000 customers are connected to Yext Calls. The company has raised $25 million led by Institutional Venture Partners. Sutter Hill Ventures also participated in this round of funding. Yext claims to be pulling in $20 million in revenues this year.

Yext was founded in 2006 and they have partnered with publishers by installing Yext Numbers. Yext Numbers is a local search monetization platform. Yext partners include YellowPages, Topix, and Local.com. Yext uses IBM’s speech-to-text recognition to keep track of calls for billing. Yext is led by Howard Lerman and Brian Distelburger. Distelburger was the COO of CDS and Lerman was the COO of Datran Media.

“We are confident that Yext will become a leader in local web-based advertising,” stated IVP General Partner Dennis Phelps. “Howard, Brian and Brent’s company has the potential to solve this huge problem by focusing on advertisers as users.” Phelps is now a board member at Yext.

Youku.com is a popular video sharing website based in China.  This website is known for hosting full movies, but has blocked certain regions from being able to play them.  Youku has raised $30 million in funding from Maverick Capital, Brookside Capital, Sutter Hill Ventures, Farallon Capital, and Chengwei Ventures.  Youku also received a $10 million loan for equipment from Western Technology Investment.

“This investment will enable us to advance the company’s rapid growth, expand our sales and marketing network, and most importantly, accelerate our monetization process as the online video market matures and consolidates in the coming year,” stated Victor Koo, President/CEO of Youku.com Inc. in a press release. ”With the new funds, we will be deepening our service to users, advertisers and media partners to give them the best and largest platform in China to distribute video content online.”

Youku receives 100 million unique visitors per month and each users spends about 300 minutes per month on the site.  Youku is the #6 largest site in China in terms of the amount of time that is spent on the site.

“We are happy with Youku’s success and its progress in monetization,” stated Len Baker, Managing Director at Sutter Hill. “The Youku team has clearly demonstrated its excellent execution capability, and we believe Youku is in the right position as online video takes off on a massive scale in China.”

Youku has also recently partnered with Universal, China Film Group, Beijing TV, EMI, Huayi Music and several other media firms. 

Youku’s last round of funding was $40 million.  That investment was provided by Sutter Hill, Brookside Capital, Chengwei Ventures, and Farallon Capital.

Related Link:
Youku.com
Information Source:
PEHub