Red Ventures invests $15 million in San Francisco tech firm

Indian Land, S.C.-based Red Ventures, an Internet sales and marketing firm, has invested $15 million in a San Francisco-based mobile advertising company called Ampush.

Ampush generates ads “native to the mobile environment,” meaning they match the form and function of the platform on which they appear and often appear as sponsored or promoted content to consumers, according to a statement from Red Ventures.

Ampush specializes in mobile advertising, customer acquisition and direct response marketing for big Internet companies including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest.

“We’ve known the team at Ampush for a long time, tracked their progress, and have developed a strong relationship as they’ve continued to grow,” said Red Ventures Chief Executive Officer Ric Elias.

The partnership will enable Red Ventures to tap into Ampush’s native in-feed mobile capabilities to improve customer acquisition for clients. Ampush, in turn, will be able to use Red Ventures’ capabilities to offer clients a “complete suite of customer acquisition tools,” Red Ventures said.

As part of the deal, Elias will join the Ampush board of directors.

Ampush was founded in 2009 and has offices in Los Angeles, Chicago and New York. The company was ranked No. 61 in the 2015 Inc. 5000, a list of the 5,000 fastest growing private companies in the U.S.

Red Ventures was founded in 2000. It employs more than 2,700 and was recently named the Observer’s No. 1 workplace among large companies in the region. The firm’s other recent deals include the $250 million investment from tech investor Silver Lake in January, as well as Red Ventures’ $310 million purchase of marketing services firm Imagitas in May.

This story was originally published October 20, 2015 at 10:23 AM with the headline "Red Ventures invests $15 million in San Francisco tech firm."