Phorm issues £2m of new shares for expansion in Brazil and China
Personalised advertising firm Phorm yesterday announced it will issue 1m new shares to institutional investors to provide a £2m war-chest for its push into Brazil and China.
The share placing was made by Mirabaud Securities. Advising on the placement – which will amount to 6.4 per cent of all shares after the issue – was Canaccord Genuity.
Phorm, which tracks people’s internet habits in order to provide tailored advertising, has recently gained more contracts in Brazil and was confident it would secure funding to develop the business.
The company, whose software has faced opposition from privacy groups, has focused its efforts on Brazil, where in March it signed up a string of internet service providers and content providers to roll out its service across the country. Similar attempts to expand in the UK failed after meeting stiff opposition.
Phorm said new contracts in Brazil were pending, in addition to those already signed with telecoms company Oi, newspaper publisher Estado, ISPs UOL and iG and media publisher Terra.
Phorm’s Chairman and chief executive Kent Ertugrul said: “We expect the pace of deployment in Brazil to increase rapidly during the second half of 2010 from the existing modest coverage of subscribers, and to begin serving revenue-generating ads in the coming months.”
The company reduced operating losses to $29.7m (£18.4m) in the year ending December 31 2009, from $49.8m in 2008.