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Technical.ly
20 hours ago
- Business
- Technical.ly
Audigent's cookie-free journey to adtech success
Startup profile: Audigent Founded by: Shelton Mercer, Jon Gosier, Brian Brater, Elizabeth Hitchcock and Drew Stein Year founded: 2016 in Philadelphia Headquarters: New York, NY Sector: Advertising services Funding and valuation: Acquired by Experian in December 2024 Key ecosystem partners: Time Warner, Ben Franklin Technology Partners In 2016, Shelton Mercer and his co-founders crammed into a tiny office in a Philly brownstone — 10 developers, hackers and software engineers sharing 500 square feet — to create an advertising technology under the name Audigent. A dozen years later, the startup, which specializes in online advertising without cookie tracking, would be acquired by global data analytics company Experian, with a reported valuation of between $200 million and $250 million, after raising millions in funding along the way. 'I have the privilege of having Audigent be my fourth exit from a company,' Mercer said at the 2025 Builders Conference during the panel 'Case Studies on Entrepreneurship Access.' Even with Mercer's experience, Audigent's rise took time, hard work and a lot of due diligence. No cookies, no problem Audigent's framework for advertisers and publishers allows customers to target their key demographics, as all adtech tools do. The difference with Audigent, now headquartered in NYC, is that it prioritizes the privacy of its potential customers by never using cookies (those small files that websites use to track users' online behavior). Instead, it uses data from partners, like music streamers, media companies and sports sites. In 2019, Warner Music Group (WMG) invested in Audigent during its Series A funding round, alongside Raised In Space and Gao Xiaosong. It was a strategic investment totaling $4 million, aimed at improving digital advertising within the music industry. 'We need to see, as a value for society, entrepreneurship as a way to get people to the next level and the next strata of wealth generation for their families.' Shelton Mercer, Audigent To get there, Audigent underwent the long due diligence process with investor and economic development organization Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern Pennsylvania (BFTP), something Mercer discussed at the Builders Conference with co-panelist Scott Nissenbaum, BFTP's president and CEO. 'Our process at Ben Franklin is designed like boot camp,' Nissenbaum said. 'No one says, 'That sergeant at boot camp was so nice.' That's not our job.' Mercer admitted he was initially hesitant about going through BFTP's 6-month process of intense scrutiny. But those six months of 'kicking, clawing, scratching, screaming,' as Mercer put it, led to that successful 60-minute meeting with WMG, on top of a $1 million investment from BFTP itself. Wealth-building through entrepreneurship Both Mercer and Nissenbaum share a vision for Philadelphia, and regions like it, where people from all kinds of backgrounds and walks of life can turn entrepreneurship into generational wealth. 'It doesn't just have to be the Silicon Valley, the New York, the Chicago, the LA founders or even founders who are fortunate to have partners like Scott and Ben Franklin to accelerate our company and the many other investors that helped us,' Mercer said. 'We need to see, as a value for society, entrepreneurship as a way to get people to the next level and the next strata of wealth generation for their families.' BFTP, Nissenbaum said, continues to value entrepreneurship as a driver for social change and advancement for groups underrepresented in tech. 'I think 46% of our portfolio has racial diversity in the C-suite, 56% has gender diversity,' he said. Key strategies for engaging with economic development investors Here are a few key things up-and-coming startups can learn from Audigent's journey: Be prepared for the grind: Ben Franklin's process is thorough. It's not a quick check-in; it's a deep dive. See that as a good thing — it forces you to solidify your plan and address potential weaknesses while building a bridge to other investors. Surround yourself with talent: Mercer credits Audigent's success to its strong team, with each bringing unique skill sets to the table. As Nissenbaum pointed out, most entrepreneurs are good at one thing. You need to fill in the gaps with people who excel in other areas. Embrace the ecosystem: Don't try to do it alone. Organizations like Ben Franklin and other ecosystem orgs exist to support startups. They provide resources, connections, and, sometimes, tough love. Don't be afraid of due diligence: While long, it helps you prepare for major deals. Have patience: If an exit is your goal, don't expect it to happen right away. Audigent's story shows what can happen when vision, the right support system and a lot of patience come together. As Nissenbaum said, 'Nine years later, we're celebrating an overnight success.'
Technical.ly
07-05-2025
- Business
- Technical.ly
15 years in, Philly Tech Week still brings the city's tech scene together
2025 marks 15 years of the Philly tech ecosystem coming together for Philly Tech Week — and a lot has changed since that first scrappy conference was announced in 2010. The 15th annual Philly Tech Week (PTW) started on Monday, kicking off over 40 tech and innovation-themed events throughout the city. Today, the celebration is presented by Comcast and hosted by 1Philadelphia, and has turned into a citywide collaborative effort. But it began under as a way for orgs from different sectors and sizes to get to know each other, cofounder and CEO, Chris Wink said. While it'll continue to change, Wink said, the ethos of community gathering that brought innovators and technologists together from the start should remain at the heart of it. So far, it's met that goal, but what that looks like going forward will have to keep evolving to meet the needs of the participants, according to its leaders. 'Philadelphia needed the last 15 years of Philly Tech Week,' Wink said. 'I'm not sure if Philadelphia needs another 15 years of the same, but Philadelphia absolutely needs a place where its entrepreneurship, tech and innovation community comes together.' People across sectors and throughout the region come out to engage with the ecosystem, and 2025 is no exception. Events like the Department of Commerce's Level Up Your Pitch workshop, Out in Tech Philly's PTW Mixer and Builders Conference are happening throughout the city until May 10. kicked it off, but PTW belongs to the entire ecosystem founders, Wink, Brian James Kirk and Sean Blanda, hosted the first PTW in 2011, taking inspiration from the annual beer festival Philly Beer Week and joining the 2010s trend of cities hosting startup weeks. They found through their early reporting that traditional institutions like the Chamber of Commerce and big corporations were not connected to tech meetup groups and the startup community, Wink said. These groups were all relevant to the ecosystem, but they weren't connected, he said. The idea was that the city would be more powerful as a collective than as individuals. 'It was more about people who liked each other, coming from very different jobs,' Wink said. 'It's not an industry at that point. It's a community.' It wasn't until 2013 that PTW started to hit its stride. Event attendance doubled, people recognized the format, and they started to lean into the 'spectacle' of the week, Wink said. That year, Drexel University professor Frank Lee organized 'Pong on the Cira Center,' setting a world record for the largest architectural video game display. The goal of having many different organizations host a variety of events across the city was coming to fruition and the community calendar of events was keeping existing stakeholders engaged while also bringing in new people, Wink said. 'Philly Tech Week mattered because we established the format,' Wink said. 'The idea of having a week of events related at all to this topic is ours first.' From a wider lens, PTW puts a spotlight on the potential of Philly's tech and innovation community, Danae Mobley, executive director of 1Philadelphia and CEO of Coded By, said. The legacy of PTW is the collaboration among the community and the people who still care about coming together under a shared vision, she said. 'We've seen the evolution of [PTW],' Mobley said. 'While the people may have changed, I don't think the energy or the sentiment behind wanting Philly to succeed as a tech market has changed.' Bringing the city together and catching the mayor's attention Many memorable and impactful tech moments happened at PTW over its first 10 years. Local data project OpenDataPhilly launched at the very first Philly Tech Week's opening event, providing a resource for Philadelphians to access publicly available data. 'It was a great rollout of an open data catalog for and by a community,' Robert Cheetham, founder of software company Azavea, told The following year, Mayor Michael Nutter signed an executive order to establish an Open Data Policy for the City of Philadelphia. The city's open data program went on to see a lot of progress over the last decade, but the project has lost momentum over the last few years. PTW has also broken more than one world record, once again for the largest architectural video game display. Drexel's Lee returned in 2014 to organize games of Tetris on the Cira Center that year. This event is a favorite PTW memory for Mobley. Now that 1Philadelphia runs PTW, the memory feels like a full circle moment, she said. 'I thought that that was just so amazing, that there were people that just had that spirit of ingenuity and playfulness and fun around something that brought the city together,' she said. 1Philadelphia takes over to make PTW part of its mission Last year, began the process of handing PTW off to 1Philadelphia, and the org is fully hosting this year's lineup of events. 1Philadelphia, an initiative of tech education nonprofit Coded by, launched in 2020. Coded by had always participated in PTW and the org saw how it brought the community together, according to Mobley. It made sense to get more involved with Philly Tech Week because of 1Philadelphia's mission to bring stakeholders together and create a more equitable tech ecosystem in Philly, she said. 'Because of the work that we were doing as a convener with some of our signature events,' Mobley said. 'We really wanted to see how we could come in and support and bolster this long-standing tradition of a great innovation festival that happens in Philadelphia.' For 1Philadelphia's takeover made sense, too. Wink said he's been thinking about handing the reins to someone else since 2019, but the pivot to online celebrations for its 10th anniversary stalled the process of searching for the next leader. Last year was a transition period. 1Philadelphia cohosted Philly Tech Week alongside helping to organize the community calendar, contributing to the marketing and hosting its own events. This year, the org is ready to fully take over coordinating PTW. As for what's next, it's up to the community that rallies around PTW each year. 'Philly Tech Week is for everyone,' Mobley said. 'It is not the ownership of one entity.' Sarah Huffman is a 2022-2024 corps member for Report for America, an initiative of The Groundtruth Project that pairs young journalists with local newsrooms. This position is supported by the Lenfest Institute for Journalism.
Technical.ly
22-04-2025
- Business
- Technical.ly
Meet the DC ecosystem leaders coming to the Technical.ly Builders Conference
Next month, DC entrepreneurs and technologists will trek up I-95 to represent the region at annual Builders Conference. Attendees from more than 20 states, plus the district, will come together between May 8 and 9 for panels and other programming on building local tech and entrepreneurial ecosystems. That includes numerous people from the DMV, some of whom will demonstrate their expertise during the two-day affair. Curious about how to communicate your innovation, or how you can use AI to improve your early-stage startup? Make sure to nab a ticket. Keep scrolling to meet some DC, Maryland and Virginia leaders who will be attending the conference from the DMV (it's a simple two-hour train ride!). Startup-focused law group NEXT powered by Shulman Rogers is represented by founder and chair Anthony Millin, who will speak on a panel about how startups can avoid common legal issues. Founder Raymond Magee of the plant recognition app developer BloomCatch will discuss recruiting workers and the decision confronting many business leaders: whether to make a workforce hybrid or remote. Cofounder Christina Reed of The Pitch Place, which offers a platform for freelancers and editors to find one another, will appear on a panel focused on exploring digital equity and making innovation more accessible. John Hopkins-Gillespie, the director of policy and product counsel at Trustible AI, will discuss what the future of AI regulation could look like. Trustible helps companies comply with AI regulations and standards. Founder Ashwin Jaiprakash of the AI services startup Eazy will go over how early-stage founders can use the technology to boost their businesses.
