digitalArbor Secures $5 Million of Funding to Provide Implementation Support and Production Services to the Digital Marketplace

BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--digitalArbor, a provider of implementation and production services to the digital advertising, marketing and content/communications market, launched today and announced that it has secured a $5 million Series A round of financing led by Flybridge Capital Partners. In conjunction with the launch, the company also announced that its United States operations and first offshore digital production facility have begun to service new client relationships. As part of the funding, Jeff Bussgang from Flybridge Capital Partners will join the company’s board of directors.

“As more marketing dollars flow into finding and influencing consumers through digital channels, it has become increasingly difficult for agencies and corporations alike to effectively meet production demands across the widening array of tools and technologies”

digitalArbor is founded by digital marketing industry veteran, Robert Willms who served for more than 10 years as a senior executive at Digitas including roles as President of the Digitas Boston Region and Global Head of Technology, Strategy and Analytics. While at Digitas, Willms conceived and launched the company’s near-shore digital production model, now known as “Prodigious”, and drove the industries first large cross-agency production consolidation with a large automotive client.

digitalArbor offers a new, more efficient and cost-effective paradigm to address the production needs of the $30 billion digital advertising, marketing and content/communications market through the use of an onshore/offshore business model. The company has assembled a leadership team of digital marketing veterans along with a highly-skilled Costa Rican-based creative production and technology teams to provide world-class digital implementation and production services to partner agencies and corporations.

“As more marketing dollars flow into finding and influencing consumers through digital channels, it has become increasingly difficult for agencies and corporations alike to effectively meet production demands across the widening array of tools and technologies,” said Rob Willms. “By providing experienced onshore producers and offshore technical talent for digital production and maintenance, we allow companies to scale their digital efforts while retaining their focus on the core strategic, creative, media and analytic functions of their digital advertising and marketing programs while decreasing production and maintenance costs.”

“We are thrilled to back Rob and the digitalArbor team,” said Jeff Bussgang, general partner, Flybridge Capital Partners. “The company is coming to the market at a critical point in the evolution of digital marketing services with a business model that is even more compelling in our current economic times. With digital advertising outperforming many other forms of media, there is a huge unmet need for technical resources to fulfill production needs. The company is well-positioned to become the leading outsourced service provider for the digital marketplace.”

Why digitalArbor?

digitalArbor partners with agencies and corporations to enable them to more efficiently meet the growing demand for turning strategic and creative concepts into compelling consumer experiences.

The company’s service offering provides a number of benefits to partners including:

• Model Expertise: The leadership team has the expertise needed to assist clients in making the transition to a more efficient model and offers unparalleled experience and support in production management.
• Technical Expertise: As technologies to create digital media content become more complex, the market lacks the breadth of talent, experience, and bandwidth to meet production needs. The digitalArbor team is comprised of highly educated technical talent whose only focus is on producing digital communications and assets utilizing the full range of technologies available.
• Scale: digitalArbor is positioned and funded to provide the scale and geographic coverage to provide partner agencies and corporations with the resources to serve their global client base efficiently.
• Cost Savings: Production costs are a meaningful component of the overall cost of digital marketing, especially as demand for talented production resources outstrips supply in most major markets around the country. By utilizing highly-skilled technical resources based across the global labor pool, and consolidating production activities to leverage scale and efficiency, digitalArbor is able to take advantage of globalization to dramatically reduce costs without compromise to speed and quality.
• Relationships: digitalArbor is founded by a team that brings together deep experience and relationships from leading digital agencies with the disciplines of the technology services providers.

How it Works

digitalArbor takes creative and strategic direction for advertising and marketing activities from clients to produce and maintain digital campaigns with the same quality and speed of much more expensive onshore teams. Whether a large retained team, or short-term project, digitalArbor is focused on partnering with clients on their terms. The company works with its agency clients in the way that their corporate clients demand.

About digitalArbor

Founded in 2008, digitalArbor provides onshore/offshore implementation and production services to the digital advertising, marketing, and content/communications market. Headquartered in Massachusetts with operations in San Jose, Costa Rica, the company and is backed by Flybridge Capital Partners. For more information, please visit www.digitalarbor.com.

About Flybridge Capital Partners

Flybridge Capital Partners is an early-stage venture capital firm whose mission is to assist entrepreneurs in growing innovative, global companies. With $560 million under management, the firm is focused on investing in consumer, healthcare and information technology markets and is led by a team with domain expertise and more than half a century of combined experience in venture capital. For more information, visit www.flybridge.com.