• by Tyler Loechner  @mp_tyler, September 23, 2014

ExtendTV, a company founded one year ago to help local businesses reach audiences via video advertising, on Tuesday announced its official launch and unveiled its programmatic ad platform. 

“What we did was build a tech platform that allows local advertisers to get into the game of programmatic video advertising,” Mark Goldman, co-founder and CEO of ExtendTV, said to Real-Time Daily. “We built it from the ground up to be able to efficiently target local audiences and manage campaigns at the size and scale at which they are operating, as opposed to [the size and scale of] big national advertisers.”

The platform supports all video advertising -- desktop, mobile, all digital screens and connected TVs -- for local business, per Goldman. The company has partnered with five undisclosed station groups and today rolled out in 10 local markets in the states of Washington, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, Florida and Alabama. Goldman claimed there is potential for ExtendTV to expand to 40% of the markets in the U.S. through its partnerships with the five station groups.

Goldman says ExtendTV has partnered with eight programmatic ad exchanges, and a release lists adRise, comScore, DoubleClick, IB5k, InMobi, Inneractive, LiveRail, MoPub, Nexage, Smaato, SpotXchange, TapSense and Vdopia as ExtendTV's supply and data launch partners.

Goldman said the company has also tapped into some private ad exchanges as well to get more “premium” digital video ad inventory, but declined to share where that inventory is coming from. He also highlighted the partnership with IB5k for Real-Time Daily, noting that it gives ExtendTV access to data related to political advertising.

Despite ExtendTV plugging itself as a programmatic ad platform for all video advertising, Goldman acknowledged that the TV ad-buying component will still be done through traditional means. The programmatic component, he said, “is in combining the TV buys with the digital side.”

“Think of it this way,” Goldman positioned, “instead of the TV station groups going out and building their whole ecosystem to be able to tap into these programmatic opportunities, we’ve created that ecosystem for them.”

Essentially, ExtendTV is reaching its target audience -- local advertisers -- via local TV stations, which work with local advertisers. 

ExtendTV raised $2.5 million last October from U.S. Venture Partners, per Goldman. The company is headquartered in Los Angeles with a product team in San Francisco and a business development team in New York.