Watching That secures funding from FirstPartyCapital
September 21, 2021
Watching That, the revenue intelligence platform for the OTT industry, has secured late seed funding from FirstPartyCapital, a new type of sector-focused fund, to help expand its customer base of broadcasters and OTT video providers across the globe. The funding will help Watching That invest in its technical team, accelerate global expansion, and expand its marketing efforts.
Watching That collects data from every ad and every video view across every device in near real time, allowing customers to monitor, control, troubleshoot and optimise all corners of their OTT revenue operations with a level of accuracy.
The late seed funding has been led by FirstPartyCapital, an angel-backed VC fund that includes hundreds of senior execs globally, across the digital media and marketing ecosystem. The fund was founded in December 2020 by Rich Ashton, a specialist in financing European digital media and adtech businesses, with 60 transactions completed to date, Kevin Flood, who is CEO of PowerLinks and Co-Chair of the IAB Data Transparency Standards, and Ciaran O’Kane, who is CEO of WireCorp, which owns ExchangeWire. FirstPartyCapital is unique in adtech as it supports companies with its extensive sector expertise as well as funding.
“Watching That stood out for us because they solve a specific problem that is becoming increasingly important to broadcasters and OTT video providers,” said Rich Ashton, Managing Partner at FirstPartyCapital. “Cameron and his team are technically very highly skilled and laser-focused on addressing, and anticipating, their customers’ needs. They have scaled well organically and have a great customer list and pipeline. We’re really excited to be supporting them in the next phase of their growth.”
Watching That was founded in 2016 by Cameron Church, who previously worked for online media specialists Brightcove and Rightster (now Brave Bison). He also founded a highly successful boutique management consultancy focused on solving the online video business puzzle.
“This is a major investment milestone for Watching That as it secures our plans to drive the business forward faster at what is a crucial point for the industry,” said Cameron Church, CEO & Founder at Watching That. “FirstPartyCapital’s commitment to our growth is a big validation of our proposition because they understand the challenges and opportunities that our customers face. We really wanted a smart investment partner that would help us achieve our goals, and that’s what we have. This is an exciting time for Watching That and we already have several major broadcaster customers in a launch phase. I can’t wait to push on from here.”