Tyroo and Anurag Gupta to acquire DGM India

Tyroo, a SVG company, today announces the acquisition of DGM India alongwith DGM India’s Managing Director Anurag Gupta.

With this acquisition Tyroo has undoubtedly become the largest digital media network in India and is on its way to becoming India’s largest digital media company, after Google India, by next year.

On this occasion Tyroo’s Founder Manish Vij says “DGM is a company with over 5 years of performance leadership, a world class proprietary technology and management. We are excited to bring them as part of the Tyroo / SVG family. With this acquisition there will be clearly a media network that can give advertisers scale and quality. For Publishers it will be the only place to have almost every running campaign in Indian digital media”

Anurag Gupta, DGM India’s founder, promoter and Managing Director says “I am excited to take DGM India along with India’s largest digital media group. DGM India has a superb team, technology and leadership in the performance business. DGM is on a very fast growth rate and will end the year with USD 5 –6 Mnannual revenue. We are launching other DGM Products in market very soon and enhancing our technology”

Manish Vij further adds“both the companies will continue to run separately. Anurag will continue to be the Managing Director of DGM and Tyroo Direct, Tyroo’s performance network arm, will be continue to be headed by Siddharth Puri”.

Tyroo Audience is the leading rich media network and Tyroo Direct is already the second largest acquisition channel for almost all the leading eCommerce / Internet businesses. Tyroo will continue to strengthen its leadership position in the market separately.

About Tyroo
Tyroo was started in 2007 and is India's leading digital media company that reaches more than 22 million unique users in the country, representing more than 50 percent reach of India’s Internet users. It is represented by its businesses Tyroo Direct and Tyroo Audience. Tyroo Direct is the leader in digital performance media. It works with almost all major e-commerce and Internet-based businesses in India to drive results using its performance network of over 1,000 publishers and dynamic re-targeting on display. Tyroo Audience is a leader in digital rich media display advertising. It works with major digital advertising brands and agencies. Tyroo has worked with over 400 unique brands and 1,800 campaigns.

www.tyroo.com

About DGM

DGM India was formed in the year 2007 and was a subsidiary of ADH Plc, a London Stock Exchange listed company. It was the first affiliate network in the country and among the leading ad networks in the country.

www.dgm-india.com

About SVG: 

SVG is a joint venture of Manish Vij’sVun Network and Harish Bahl’s Smile Group. It is the largest digital media group in country with companies such as Tyroo, SeventyNine (the mobile network), Zoomtra and Quasar. It is on its way to launching and acquiring new digital media businesses in the country.

Tyroo Media announces strategic realignment with Xplorer Capital

01 November 2011

Tyroo Media, the leading digital media advertising network in India, today announced that its original seed investor, Yahoo! Inc., has sold their shareholding in Tyroo to Xplorer Capital. Xplorer Capital is a unique growth stage venture capital firm, which is focused exclusively on investing in internet and digital media businesses in the emerging markets. Xplorer Capital is headed by digital industry veterans, like Keith Nilsson, who for over ten years ran both corporate development and the emerging markets operations at Yahoo!, reporting to the CEO. Tyroo founders include Mahendra Swarup, Harish Bahl, CP Singh and Manish Vij. Commenting from the founding team Manish Vij, Founder of Tyroo, said, “We are very excited to be part of Xplorer Capital. The partners of the fund carry a great amount of experience and respect in the global digital media industry. This change will positively impact our company’s growth and will further strengthen our position in India and as we expand in the APAC markets.” Keith Nilsson, General Partner at Xplorer Capital said, “I am very excited about the Tyroo business and spending more time with Manish and his management team. We think Tyroo is uniquely positioned to capitalize on the online advertising growth in India, which appears to be hitting an inflection point, by providing advertisers with a compelling mix of products and services.” Tyroo, which received a round of seed funding from Yahoo! soon after its launch in 2007, has since grown to become among the top digital media advertising networks in the APAC region. Tyroo operates two key businesses: Tyroo Direct and Tyroo Audience. Tyroo Direct is the largest performance advertising network, which partners with nearly all major e-Commerce and Internet companies in the region to help them acquire new users and increase transactions. Tyroo Audience is a rich media advertising network that creates unique online advertising solutions for its clients and has the ability to reach over 20 million unique visitors in India every month.

Tyroo winners at the Vodafone Big League 2011

30th October 2011, New Delhi

Tyroo Media was announced as one of the winners in the Vodafone Big League. Vodafone Essar had launched a campaign called the ‘Drive into the Big League’. Given the increasing thrust and focus on the small and medium enterprise (SME) community, the brand organized Vodafone Drive into the Big League, giving a once-in-alifetime opportunity for the winning enterprise to be recognized as the emerging business model and have its company logo on the Vodafone McLaren Mercedes cars during the race weekend. Tyroo Direct - largest performance advertising network in India, emerged as one of the top winners after a battle on an eight-part television series. Out of 80,000 entries, 21 companies were short-listed based on their growth in the last three years, and more importantly, for use of technology in driving their growth. We are very thrilled to announce that Tyroo Media came out as one of the winners in the Vodafone Big League. Tyroo’s achievement is visible in many of the Indian International Airports and various print publications.

Tyroo amongst top digital media in India

Tyroo Media’s Network grows to 19.2 Million unique visitors

New Delhi, 24 June 2011

Tyroo Media, India’s leading horizontal ad network, today announced another milestone in its growth, recording over 19.2 Million unique visitors in its network, according to newly released data from ComScore MediaMatrix May 2011. Nitin Chowdhary, Business Head India, Tyroo Media Pvt. Ltd. said “We’re excited to see the continued growth and engagement in our network. As per Comscore’s latest numbers, Tyroo now reaches nearly half of India’s internet audience. Given our leadership and strength, we continue to do business with most digital advertisers and agencies and enable them to get access to a broad base of publishers on our network.” He further added – “With this kind of reach we empower our advertisers to engage consumers through our high engagement rich media formats like VooDoo and reach the exact target audience through our advanced dynamic retargeting capabilities to ensure delivery against brand metrics with optimum ROI.” ComScore MediaMetrix’s new data shows that Tyroo Media is ranked the fourth largest digital media vehicle in the country. The demographic profile report also suggests that almost 44 percent of the total Internet population visit Tyroo media’s network of sites.

Tyroo Media Launches Dynamic Retargeting

31 May 2011

Tyroo Media announced today the launch of its dynamic retargeting capabilities to Indian advertisers. Tyroo’s dynamic retargeting platform transforms static display media into an intelligent, real time marketing channel that lets online marketers personalize offers to consumers at scale. Nitin Chowdhary, Business Head India for Tyroo Media said – “We’re proud to launch dynamic retargeting to Indian advertisers. This capability from Tyroo will allow advertisers to reach users that have previously engaged with their brand’s online assets either through site visits, online shopping or engaging with ads. This new form of dynamic retargeting involves on-the-fly, real-time personalized banner creation. Focusing a campaign on users that have been previously touched in this manner improves ROI significantly. Not only will this help advertisers realize optimum ROI, it also makes ads more relevant to consumers.” Siddharth Puri, Head of Tyroo’s Performance Business further added – “Dynamic retargeting is becoming the mechanism of choice for E-Commerce marketers looking to increase their sales. Tyroo is already working with a number of top E-commerce companies in India to help them increase their reach. Our dynamic retargeting capabilities will help them boost volume and quality of conversions that is critical to scaling. We plan to target E-Commerce and other advertisers that sell catalog of products.”

Tyroo Hits another Six! - Announces exclusive advertising partnership with Cricket20.com

29 March 2011

Tyroo Media announced their exclusive partnership with Cricket20.com, the official partnering site for IPLCricketLive.com. Under this deal, Tyroo will be able to provide premium and exclusive sponsorship slots to advertisers. Nitin Chowdhary, Business Head, Tyroo Media said “IPL has emerged as one of India's premium sports properties, engaging viewers across segments in very large numbers and is now a premium event in the world cricket calendar. As one of the India's leading ad networks, it makes perfect sense for us to partner with Cricket20.com. Cricket20.com reaches a cricket hungry India audience is numbers that are almost on par with the premier cricket websites active in Indian Internet thus creating a great platform for advertisers especially in combination with Tyroo’s flagship rich media products, VooDoo and Catfish.” He also added “We are providing a different type of sponsorship slots to the advertisers – Platinum, Gold, Silver and Bronze. Apart from Cricket20.com, we also have tie ups with other leading cricket portals like CricketNirvava, KrishCricket, Cricbuzz & Vcricket. The rich media formats have been made available on these portals for wider coverage ensuring advertisers to pitch themselves globally.” On this partnership Simon Presland, Senior Business Manager of GreenBerry Media that owns Cricket20.com, said “Tyroo’s expertise in working with brand advertisers in the Indian market is unmatched. We’re very excited about working partnering with them on bringing advertising opportunities on Cricket20.com to India.”

Tyroo inducts new faces for its core team

15 March 2011

Tyroo Media one of the largest horizontal Ad Networks with their offices in Gurgaon/NCR, Mumbai and Bangalore have announced few additions in their Sales and Performance team as they continue to grow and are expanding both its services and clients. Nitin Chowdhary, Business Head, Tyroo Media said – “Tyroo’s business continues to grow strongly with addition of several new capabilities – we announced our partnership with SlideShare recently, we also announced our large format ad product called VooDoo at the start of 2011. We continue to add newer advertisers in all sectors.” Nitin further added – “Given our growth, we see the need to segregate our business into two broad areas. Given the rapid increase in Internet businesses, we’ve created a business unit that will focus on serving the digital marketing needs of these advertisers. Siddharth Puri, who is an old hand at Tyroo, will now be running this newly created, Performance business. Also, given the rapid increase in adoption of digital media advertising by brands, we’re creating a focused team to develop and grow this business. Piyush Rathi, who comes from digital agency and television ad sales background, joins us as the National Sales Head. I wish both Siddharth and Piyush tremendous success in their respective roles.” Speaking today, Siddharth Puri, Head of Tyroo’s Performance business expanded – “Tyroo is seeing tremendous growth in the performance services especially for Internet advertisers in verticals such as jobs, matrimony, travel, e-commerce, classifieds and others. I am pleased to announce that Geetu Ahuja, who has almost a decade of Internet Marketing experience, has joined us as Head of Performance Delivery. Given her strong understanding of online marketing and her extensive experience with large clients, she will add immense value to Tyroo.”

Tyroo: Exclusive partner for SlideShare India

01 March 2011

Tyroo Media and SlideShare today announced an exclusive partnership in the India region. Under this agreement, Tyroo Media will be the sole marketing and sales partner for SlideShare’s advertising solutions in the country. Tyroo Media’s Business Head, Nitin Chowdhary said – “We are delighted to announce our exclusive partnership with SlideShare – the world’s largest community for sharing business presentations. SlideShare has almost 2 million unique users of premium audience in India that consists of managers, decision makers and executives. SlideShare ensures that this premium audience is engaged by quality content in business, management, finance and other areas. We are very excited to be working with the SlideShare team and to contribute to their monetization strategy in India.” Amit Ranjan, COO & Co-Founder SlideShare also added “Tyroo’s experience in the Indian market and their strong focus on premier inventory makes them an ideal partner for SlideShare. We are constantly innovating with our platform and the introduction of Zipcast recently, which is a viral public meeting service, is an example. In addition to banner advertising on our content - we also offer innovations such as sponsorship opportunities for online events such as presentation of the year. In India we have experienced a growth in excess of 200 % plus over the last year.”

Tyroo Media launches cricket channel

By Aloo Techie, 16 June, 2008

Online ad network Tyroo Media has launched a cricket channel whose inventory includes CricketNirvana.com (Neo Sports), KrishCricket.com (online initiative of ex-cricketer Krish Shreekant), v Cricket.com, CricBuzz.com, ZeeCric.com along with cricket channels of Sify, OneIndia and ExpressIndia (openPR) - June 06th, 2007 – Delhi - Tyroo Media Pvt Ltd has adopted new advanced technologies to qualitatively enhance its Geographic IP targeting functionality. With the recent developments, it’s now possible for Tyroo’s customers to target more than 200 countries. www.Tyroo.com 136A, Vishal House, Zamrudpur, Kailash Colony Delhi-110048

Tyroo beefs up its gaming bouquet with new gaming channel

By Exchange4media News Service , May 22, 2008

Tyroo Media has launched a unique gaming channel as part of its fast expanding inventory bouquet. The inventory names like Miniclip.com,UltimateArcade.com, and Cheatcodes.com, among others, and targets an age group of 13-25 years having high speed broadband connections and good spending power. Commenting on the new gaming channel, Aditya Khanna, Business Head, Tyroo Media Pvt Ltd, said, “Gaming is one of our strong sub-categories and part of our complete entertainment bouquet that also includes social networking / movies / music / downloads, among others. It is typically being used by advertisers in the FMCG, sports manufacturing and personal technology industries. This adds to the already existing Premium technology, NRI, entertainment, education, auto, cricket, news and regional inventories at Tyroo, making it one of the largest horizontal inventory accumulator in India.” Most of the audience is Internet savvy and a big influencer in 81 per cent of all family purchase decisions like mobile phones, cars, and holidays, etc. Consisting of premium placements on homepages, game pages and category pages, this inventory is excellent for branding communication. Currently exposed to four million unique users, these users have five times better recollection power than other age-groups and a higher acceptability to brand exposure. This inventory is available on both CPC and CPM and industry performance suggests CTRs much higher than other verticals. With 72 per cent people buying gadgets and hardware influenced by the Internet, gaming inventory should open up new avenues for advertisers. www.Tyroo.com 136A, Vishal House, Zamrudpur, Kailash Colony Delhi-110048

Small Publishers & Ad-networks

By exchange4media News Service

This Tyroo commissioned Research Report looks into the ever so growing Small Publisher market in India. Blogs and User generated content is the order of the day, and more and more people are taking to the street. It was this in mind, and their efforts to monetize the enormous cumulated inventory on these so called tier-II sites, that the research was conceptualized. It aims to understand the scale of the market, their needs, demands, from ad-networks which seem to be their best option to monetize inventory. The following are the key findings of the research- The inventory follows a skewed Pareto’s principle, with the top few (Approximately 5%) websites contributing more than 90% inventory, and the mass websites, in the form of blogs, Review sites etc accumulate only around 10% inventories. Among Ad-Networks, Interactive Agencies & Sales forces, Tier-II publishers prefer ad-networks to monetize their inventory. This is both out of reason, Better Targeting, Ad-relevancy etc and out of no other choice available, because of the lack of brand value. Currently small publishers face the following key issues with ad-networks Variety of advertisers is not much Delayed Payments because of manual processes Fixed payment lower limit – which means that small publishers find it really hard to earn their first cheque. Click Fraud detection is at the ad-network end, and not at the publisher’s end

Tyroo Media launches premium technology inventory for its advertisers

By exchange4media News Service, April 11, 2008

Tyroo Media, an Indian Internet advertising network, has launched premium technology inventory for its advertisers. In a first-of-its-kind for any advertising network in India, Tyroo has managed to develop separate technology inventories targeting separate genres of end users and decision makers. While the Tier-I inventory targets IT managers and decision makers, Tier-II targets IT developers, engineers and programmers, and Tier III inventory targets final consumers. This breakthrough packaging of inventory would provide advertisers and media planners the most relevant and sought after targeting to final consumers of technology products and services. The publishers include websites like Technorati.com, Asp.net, Developer.com and Linuxplanet.com among a total of more than 125 websites, including coding websites, websites with consumer durable content, review sites and highly rated blogs. This technology package has been accepted well with Microsoft, Samsung, Dell and HP advertising regularly through this inventory. It has been used for both consumer and business products and is attracting advertisers of all genres, from ERP service providers to laptop manufacturers, from printers to SME solution providers, and more. The inventory is available at both CPC and CPM rates and packaged with features like the ability to select websites and site-wise reporting, a first again for blind networks. Aditya Khanna, Business Head, Tyroo Media Pvt Ltd, said, “The current Indian technology inventory is over-priced because there is shortage of supply in India. By aggregating foreign sites for their Indian targeted inventory, Tyroo has created a pool that didn’t exist earlier and is giving stiff competition to Indian technology inventory on both performance and cost.”

Tyroo claims to display 2.5 billion impressions a month

By Aloo Techie, 12 March, 2008

Ad network Tyroo Media, which is incubated by Smile Interactive Technologies Group and funded by Yahoo, claims to have touched the 2.5 billion impressions per month milestone recently. According to Tyroo, its 2500 strong publisher network includes Perfspot, Facebook, About.com, SantaBanta, Smashits, Yatra, and OneIndia. The company counts Microsoft, General Motors, Pepsi, ICICI and Yahoo amongst its advertisers. Through ad-exchange programs with international ad-networks, access to the Yahoo publisher network and exclusive contracts with leading websites, Tyroo has managed to accumulate phenomenal international inventory, the company has said. “Tyroo’s NRI, technology and entertainment inventories are among the best in the industry and have been providing efficient and cost effective platforms for advertisers ranging from all genres of industry. Inventory on various premium sites adds to that and makes the range diverse and cost effective,” Aditya Khanna, business head, Tyroo Media, has said. www.Tyroo.com 136A, Vishal House, Zamrudpur, Kailash Colony Delhi-110048

Tyroo, iXiGO, DimDim among 10 ‘Most Interesting Start-ups’

By Aloo Techie, January 3, 2008

Business daily Mint, a part of the HT Media group, has come out with a list of the 10 “most interesting start-ups” to watch for in 2008. The list includes, Tyroo Media (online ad network), iXiGO.com (travel meta search) and DimDim (online Web conferencing).Sloka Telecom, Ziva Software, Novatium Solutions, MobME Wireless Solutions, Anantara Solutions, Mango Technologies and Zoho are the other companies selected in the list of the 10 ‘most interesting start-ups’. According to Mint, the selected companies stood out from the rest in terms of the products or services offered, founder experience and credentials, differentiated business models and potential market opportunity. “We put them forward not just as interesting companies to watch for but also as representatives of the infectious and powerful wave of entrepreneurship that is now sweeping the country,” Mint writes.

They stand out for the products or services offered, founder credentials and new business models

By Live Mint, Dec 31 2007

Namitha Jagadeesh Description:Anantara Solutions Pvt. Ltd offers “second generation outsourcing” solutions, which combines IT services with business consulting. Founder G.B. Prabhat was earlier instrumental in building a business platform at Satyam Computer Services Ltd that had earned the company $200 million in revenue at the time he quit. The Chennai-based start-up was short listed for Nasscom’s 100 IT Innovators 2007. 8. Tyroo Media Pvt. Ltd Founder(s): Harish Bahl, Manish Vij, C.P. Singh, Aditya Khanna Space: Online advertising Funding: Undisclosed investment by Yahoo Inc. Description:Tyroo Media Pvt. Ltd is an online advertising network that uses proprietary targeting technology to ensure advertisers reach out to the right websites from its inventory of publishers. Internet company Yahoo picked up at least 35% stake in Tyroo for an undisclosed amount in July 2007. Incubated by Delhi-based digital media company Smile Interactive Technologies Group, Tyroo was shortlisted for the second edition of Proto. 9. Mango Technologies Pvt. Ltd Founder(s): Sunil Maheshwari, Lekh Joshi Space: Mobile applications platforms Funding: Self funded Description:Mango Technologies Pvt. Ltd develops mobile platforms to enhance user experience on low-end handsets. Incubated at NSRCEL on the IIM, Bangalore campus. Works with handset and chipset manufacturers to build platforms that allow rich media applications on a light framework. It was shortlisted for Nasscom’s 100 IT Innovators 2007 and showcased its product at mobile demo event MoDeMo in December. 10. Zoho (AdventNet Inc.) Founder(s): Sridhar Vembu and Tony Thomas Space: Online Web applications Funding: Self-funded Description: Zoho showcased its product at DEMO this year. It offers a number of online office tools such as word processor, project management software and CRM solutions. It competes with Microsoft and Google Inc. Software product development is done out of Chennai.

Companies that participated in Internet segment:

By Pluggd In, 22 Jul 2007

Inasra: Product: Inasra - a hotel booking service, Inasra goes a level deep and covers more than the hotels. Their coverage includes (apart from the regular hotels) service apartments, cheap hotels - right from price range of 300 - 45K! Read our review here Looking for funding (VC who can mentor them as well) and partnerships. Pennywise Solutions Product: tolmolbol, a local search service present across 100 Indian cities. The presentation was well scripted and tolmolbol guys did a good job of showcasing their features (business search, SMS contact details, reviews/social network, events, classifieds, QnA) Read our coverage with Anand, CEO (interview, podcast) and analysis of local search space. @ Proto: tolmolbol is looking for product feedback, and also used the platform to increase awareness of the product. Tyroo Product: Tyroo A self-served ad network, Tyroo is a contextual advertising network. Very interesting presentation - rich visuals, Tyroo did “advertise” itself well. Looking for product feedbacks/users/market expansion and recruitment as well. Skillworth Technologies: Product: Cricko, CricTV, Aiming to tap the cricket frenzy, Cricko is an interactive media cricket network that allows one to play games and earn points (which can be redeemed). Looking for VC funding and partners. RouteGuru: Well, they are solving a big pain (read the product review here) - enables one to look for driving direction using landmarks. They showcased couple of new features in Proto: RouteMap / Widgets and RouteHints Related: Podcast with Avinash, founder of RouteGuru, Elephant vs. Ant Looking for funding and partnerships. MineKey Product: MineKey is a web2.0 startup in contextual content recommendation space. They have already received round A funding. At proto: to showcase their product. Genie Interactive Product: Voiee is a simple voicemail and voice messaging systems. Deepak did a good “live” demo (was way too scared of Murphy’s law! - BTW his login failed the first time!!) and sared few of the features that Voiee is working on. Looking for strategic partnerships, and investors.

Yahoo buys 35% stake in Tyroo Media

Tyroo-Press Release-By The Hindu Business Line, Jul 19, 2007

Our Bureau New Delhi, July 18 Yahoo Inc on Wednesday said it will buy over 35 per cent in Gurgaon-based Tyroo Media Pvt Ltd. Tyroo, a part of Smile Interactive Technologies Group (Smile Group), is an ad-network, which offers services for advertisers and publishers. The investment is expected to enable Tyroo to access Yahoo’s knowledge of Internet advertising and help Tyroo in expansion. Yahoo, however, did not divulge the quantum of the investment. “Through this investment, Yahoo would act as a catalyst for the entire ad-network industry in India, which is still in a nascent stage. It would also signify our increasing focus in Indian online advertising networks,” Mr George Zacharias, Managing director of Yahoo India, told reporters here. The cash infusion by Yahoo would be used to invest in technology and sales network to reach out to small and medium sized advertisers and publishers in India. Tyroo plans to offer newer ad-formats, enhanced customer support and flexibility to advertisers and publishers in managing campaigns. Tyroo is planning to to set up sales offices across the country and recruit more people by the year end. Yahoo will get a seat on the board of the company.

Yahoo Buys Part of Indian Ad Company Tyroo

By Search Engine Watch, July 18, 2007

The purchase of a major portion of Tyroo, the Indian online ad company, is seen as a further push into the fast growing Indian market. "There are millions of potential advertisers in India, which all the search companies and advertising networks are chasing", George Zacharias, managing director of Yahoo India told InfoWorld. Yahoo started beta testing its search-based advertising business in India over a year ago and opened it to the public about eight months ago and "so far has a few thousand small advertisers", Zacharias said.

Yahoo India Makes Strategic Investment In Ad Network Tyroo; Buys Stake Upwards Of 35 Percent

By Content Sutra- Wed 18 Jul 2007

Correction: I’d misquoted Yahoo India MD George Zacharias as stating that this is not an all cash deal (Yahoo is not disclosing the terms of the deal). Apologies for the misquote. Original post (at 12 AM IST): I’m sitting here at a presscon where Yahoo India is going to announce a strategic investment in advertising network Tyroo...so here’s the funny bit - I found out about the press conference yesterday from Rediff PR, who was inundated with calls from reporters who had received an invite that said that Yahoo India is going to announce a strategic investment today. Anyway, the presscon is about to begin, so stay tuned for details. Update: George Zacharias, Yahoo India MD said that the company has acquired upwards of 35 percent (between 35 and 50 percent) in Tyroo Media. Says that Yahoo will act as a catalyst for the advertising industry in India. The investment will enable Tyroo to create a sustainable and growing platform, and the company will be able to leverage Yahoo’s strengths. Harish Bahl, CEO of Smile Interactive, which is incubating Tyroo. They’re looking at the proverbial “long tail”, including advertisers with as small a budget as Rs. 2500. He says that 0.5 Billion impressions go waste daily in India. 50 percent of advertising goes to search, where only 5 percent of user time is being spent, so that balance has to change. Update: the Q&A Q. How much money has been invested? Zacharias: No comments on the figure, but it’s not an all cash deal. Q. Is this more about getting access to Yahoo advertisers? So far you’ve have advertisers from Quasar being directed to Tyroo. (Nikhil) Bahl: We’ll be developing our own advertising clients and publisher network. The market is growing, and it’s about getting advertisers from everywhere on board. Q. How much marketshare does Tyroo have. Given the number of ad networks being launched, is this something like a distress situation to retain marketshare? (Nikhil) Bahl: Tyroo is the largest advertising network in India,and this is not a distress situation. Q. How do you think this investment from Yahoo is going to affect getting publishers like Sify, Rediff and Indiatimes on board at Tyroo, since they are Yahoo competitors? (Nikhil) Bahl: There will be no corporate governance issues - Tyroo and Yahoo will operate independently Q. How does Tyroo fit into the Yahoo mandate? (Nikhil) Zacharias: If you remember, we’ve bought out Right Media, so it’s a part of the overall Yahoo strategy to invest in this space. There is synergy in the sense that the Yahoo sales team might offer advertising inventory to Tyroo, and the Tyroo sales team might reciprocate. Asked about the need for the sale, Bahl said that raising capital was not the objective, since the Smile Group already has an incubation unit. With Yahoo, Tyroo can attract international advertisers, and we might even take Tyroo global. The money will be used for growing the sales team and targeting the SME segment. It will also be used to improve the technology platform. Update: wrt to Kates’ comment on why Yahoo didn’t get Right Media to India, I did ask Zacharias that, but he just said something like Tyroo has the technology and the presence in the market. The other thing is - upwards of 35 percent is a rather large stake—not many companies are willing to divest that much, even though it’s a minority stake...What will be interesting is—how will other players in the market respond? Bear in mind that Interactive Avenues has received funding from Sequoia Capital, and we’ve heard they’re planning an ad network

Tyroo introduces ad creative customisation features for publishers

By exchange4media News Service , June 28, 2007

Tyroo Media Pvt Ltd, part of Smile Interactive Technologies Group, has recently launched an advertisement creative customisation feature for its publishers.It would now be possible for Tyroo’s publishers to change colour combination structures of the text ads according to their site’s requirements. Tyroo Media is the Indian self-serve ad marketplace and was commercially launched for the Internet in June 2006. Under the new system, publishers can change the colour patterns of text ads with options of 60 colours to suit the varied requirements. Borders,headlines, background, text, URL and other creative components can now be changed to suit the colour requirements of each publisher.This turns out to be a dual advantage, since publishers will be able to highlight the text-ads in a better way, and thus attracts more visitors, which would guarantee better performance through higher clicks. This is in line with the vision of providing 2.0 features for Tyroo’s publishers, thereby giving greater control to its publisher partners and allowing them to decide what is best for their site. Tyroo has a self-serve mechanism and proprietary technology. Tyroo’s self-serve mechanism allows publishers to log onto Tyroo’s website and control their campaigns. This includes deciding which colours to display, which ads to block, etc. “Having home-grown technology, we can introduce advanced features according to our client’s requirements. publishers and advertisers, who are our partners, form a very vital component of our feedback system. It’s on the basis of their feedback on the current technology, that we develop such customised features over and above the core technology,” said CP Singh, Chief Technology Officer, Smile Interactive Technologies Group. Recently, Tyroo had launched the SMS Response Management System in India, which enables small advertisers -- who don’t have a website to advertise on the largest Indian websites -- to advertise through Tyroo’s network and get the leads through text SMS.