(Bloomberg) -- ISpot.tv has raised $325 million from Goldman Sachs Asset Management, getting a fresh infusion of cash as it tries to unseat Nielsen as the go-to measurement firm for the TV advertising industry.
Goldman is buying a minority stake in the Bellevue, Washington-based business, according to a statement released Wednesday.
Long frustrated with Nielsen Holdings Plc, media companies are enlisting other measurement firms, including iSpot.tv, Comscore and VideoAmp, to create alternatives to the ratings giant. This spring, Comcast Corp.’s NBCUniversal will let advertisers buy commercials based on data from Nielsen or iSpot.tv during the upfronts, the time each year when media giants sell the bulk of their TV advertising.
Nielsen, founded in 1923, has had its ratings form the basis for how TV ads are negotiated for decades. Advertisers bought commercials for specific shows and Nielsen’s ratings counted the audience. Last month, Nielsen agreed to be bought by a group of private equity firms for $16 billion.
As viewers have moved to streaming services, advertisers have struggled to track how often their commercials are being seen. TV networks, meanwhile, have criticized Nielsen, arguing that the company doesn’t count all the viewers on different platforms, costing them millions of dollars in potential ad revenue.
ISpot says it can help solve that problem with its technology, which tracks the ads that appear and verifies the audience on 40 million smart TVs.
Founded in 2012, iSpot had previously raised $58 million. The company said it generates more than $100 million in annual revenue and plans to use the new funding on product development and buying complementary businesses, among other things.
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