A Birmingham technology company has raised £1.5 million to expand its advertising platform and accelerate its growth in the UK and international markets.
Covatic secured the investment through a funding round led by the West Midlands Co-Investment Fund, alongside Creative Growth Finance, PXN Group and several angel investors.
As part of its expansion plans, the company will move its headquarters to STEAMhouse, Birmingham City University’s innovation and business hub in the city centre.
The funding will support the commercial development of Covatic Sense, technology designed to help broadcasters and advertisers deliver more relevant advertising to individual connected television viewers without relying on traditional tracking methods.
Covatic said its wider technology is already deployed across more than 1.7 billion devices and reaches almost 200 million active users each month.
The Birmingham company works with major broadcasters and media organisations including Sky, the BBC, Bauer Media and Octave.
Connected television, commonly known as CTV, includes televisions and devices used to stream programmes through services and on-demand platforms.
The sector is becoming increasingly important to advertisers as viewers move away from traditional scheduled television and spend more time watching streamed content.
Covatic uses artificial intelligence and technology operating directly on users’ devices to help publishers understand audiences while limiting the amount of personal information transferred or stored externally.
Founder and chief executive Nick Pinks said the investment had arrived at an important point in the development of connected television advertising.
He said: “This is a brilliant moment for the team, and the timing is right. CTV advertising spend is accelerating, but the measurement infrastructure is still catching up.
“Person-level targeting on the big screen has been the missing piece, and Covatic Sense solves that structurally.
“This funding lets us move faster, with more integrations, more markets and more publishers getting the value they should already be seeing from their CTV advertising inventory.”
Huw Sparkes, investment manager at Future Planet Capital Regional, said Covatic had developed technology that could help broadcasters and advertisers reach verified audiences and measure campaign performance across different screens.
He added: “We firmly believe in the company’s ability to become a frontrunner in addressable advertising globally and look forward to joining Nick, Dan and the team as they scale internationally.”
The West Midlands Co-Investment Fund was established by the West Midlands Combined Authority and the West Midlands Pension Fund to support growing regional businesses.
It provides equity investment of up to £1 million, which must be matched by private investors.
West Midlands Mayor Richard Parker said Covatic could strengthen the region’s growing creative and digital sectors.
He said: “Creative skills such as digital advertising and the specialist technology it uses are an important part of the mix, and Covatic has the potential to help grow this part of the sector.
“They are not the first to recognise the creative talent we have in the West Midlands and make the move here. I’m backing them and others in our industries of the future to grow our economy and create the high-quality jobs local people want.”