The startup VidMob says it can quickly make ads for Snapchat — and it's raising money to help it take on ad agencies

Guy with video camera

VidMob – a Task Rabbit for video ads and content - has raised $7.5 million in new funding.
The company helps marketers crank out lots of ads for Snapchat, Facebook and Instagram, often by using existing TV ads.
The firm promises it can make these ads much faster and cheaper than ad agencies.

Advertisers ideally need to make custom ads for Snapchat. But most don't have the assets or experience to make the kinds of 'vertical' mobile ads that do well on the platform.

Over the past year the startup VidMob has quickly carved out a niche promising to help marketers convert their existing TV and web ads into Snap-friendly formats in a manner of days – a lot faster and cheaper that ad agencies.

Now, the company has raised $7.5 million to accelerate its growth as it looks to further disrupt the ad production ecosystem. That series A funding round – which includes investors such as Manifest Investment Partners, Interlock Partners and Stampede Ventures, brings VidMob's total to $13 million since launching in 2015.

That amount of cash will hardly topple the existing global ad agency system. But it's another sign of an upstart tech company squeezing its way into the ad-making food chain.

vidmoblanc VidMob is able to make short videos by tapping into a network of freelance editors and producers (think Task Rabbit for videos). The company initially focused on helping media companies like Meredith pump out more editorial video.

But once Snapchat's ad product opened up to a wide array of advertisers, the need arose for brands to churn out more 'native' Snapchat ads, and a constant flow of other ads types for other social platforms. VidMob soon became approved to make ads for Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest in addition to Snapchat, while its network of editors developed expertise on each.

Alex Collmer, founder and CEO of VidMob said that the plan for the new funding is to hire more staff and build out VidMob's engineering and data prowess.

"We want to build out the production layer of the web," he said. "Everything on the web is all about timeliness, and instead of taking weeks to make these kids of ads we can do that in a day or two. Doing that with an agency is very far from being cost effective for most brands."

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