A tech startup has raised $21.4 million, and it's another sign that the TV business is racing toward digital-like ad targeting

unnamed Investors have cooled on ad tech. But they seem to be shifting their attention to companies promising to make TV advertising function more like digital advertising.

The TV ad software startup VideoAmp has raised $21.4 million in new series B round. That brings the company's total funding to $36.6 million.

The new funding round was led by Mediaocean, a company that provides software to many ad agencies for billing and other functions. Other investors included the German media firm RTL Group as well as StartUp Capital Ventures.

In the past few years, advertisers have shown increasing interest in using data and technology to target specific audiences on TV, much like they target people who've recently visited e-commerce sites or searched for products with highly specific ads.

VideoAmp chief strategy officer Jay Prasad told Business Insider that its software can be used not only to help marketers use their own data to target narrow audiences on TV, but also sync that with their digital ad efforts. The idea is that advertisers will be able to track people from device to device (from smart TVs to laptops to phones) and they can be more strategic in their messaging approach.

"This should give brands one common digital data set that they can use to optimize TV and web campaigns,"Prasad said. "They can then make more intelligent ad buys when they go back into the market."

This targeted TV ad sector appears to be heating up. Earlier this year, the TV data and analytics firm Samba TV raised $30 million in new funding. Just a few days ago, RTL fully acquired the video ad tech company SpotX. A slew of other TV-centered tech companies made Business Insider's list of the 19 most interesting ad-tech upstarts of 2017.

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