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The proof is Proxistore, a little Belgian start-up out to conquer the world. It convinced most of the Belgian media market with its geolocalized advertising after having conquered Germany at the end of its first six months. This week, it’s advancing on France. Proxistore’s advertising solution will be found on the websites of most major French press organizations: L’Express/L’Expansion, Marie-Claire, Prisma (VSD, Femme Actuelle, Capital, Geo), Doctissimo, the Amaury group (L ‘équipe, Le Parisien). Its innovative style is being recognized worldwide. It was rated by Red Herring as one of the 100 most innovative and promising start-up technologies in Europe. It has been preselected to take part in ratings at the worldwide level.
The basic idea behind Proxistore is simple: it gives small businesses the opportunity to purchase advertising on big media sites at affordable prices. How does it work? The small businesses only pay for users in their market area.
Prior to purchasing any advertising space, the business owner must first enter their postal code or draw a circle on a map around their establishment (1, 5, or 10 km radius). Only internet users living within that radius will see the advertising. Any other user will see an ad from a national advertiser (default option) or another regional ad if that space was sold. Proxistore geolocates 100% of the people connecting on its partner sites using various methods: 3G triangulation, W-Fi, GPRS, IP address, or manual location. The entire concept of Proxistore relies on this patented cascading geolocation technology.
It’s a win-win for both parties. Web editors can better monetize their audience and make their spaces profitable. "On average, web sites are only able to market about 40% of their inventory," explains Proxistore CEO Bruno Van Boucq. "Some are ready to sell the remaining 60% at cut-rate prices through automated selling platforms. Thanks to geolocation, we can offer added value to local users." Small businesses with few internet communications tools now have an alternative to Google. "They don’t always want to see their ads appear in a search engine environment," continues Van Boucq. "They also want to be able to say that they have presence on a big media site and to take control of the communications environment".
Targeting the United States
Proxistore came into being within Beweb, one of the largest internet hosts in the country with over one hundred sites, and became independent at the beginning of the year. Beweb is focused on the Belgian market and its shareholders included local media such as RTL and IPM. Beweb’s founders didn’t see fit to take their partners on an adventure abroad that would be risky by definition. In addition, more capital was needed to finance the expansion. Once the split was finalized, Van Boucq and his associates went on the hunt for foreign investment funds. They were unsuccessful. Finally, they found the needed money in Belgium.
Roularta (Le Vif/L’Express, Trends) invested €800,000 in the company in early August. Today, it holds 32% of the capital with an option for 50%. IPM keeps 11% while the founders of Beweb hold the rest. Roularta will let Proxistore speed up its start-up in France since the company is also one of the main web editors in France through L’Express/L’Expansion.
What’s the next move? The United States. "During our grand economic mission last June, I was able to observe the degree to which the American web editors needed solutions to better monetize their local users and to compete more effectively against Google or Yahoo," explains Bruno Van Boucq. "We are in talks with some of them."