April 21, 2008

Travel Ad Network has completed a $15 million first round funding led by Rho Ventures, Village Ventures and individual investors, the company tells us. The ad network, founded in 2003, plans to use the funds to support general growth efforts, including the development of new products and establishing itself in additional, though unspecified markets. The company, based in New York City, also has offices in Canada and the UK. TAN's vertical ad net, which is focused mainly on travel sites that cater to upscale consumers, drew 9.3 million uniques in March, according to *comScore*ranked fifth behind Expedia, Travelport, Travelocity and Southwest Airlines. In the past year, though, TAN's experienced strong traffic growth and is up 97.9 percent over March '07's 4.7 million uniques.

In conjunction with the funding, TAN has added a number of new board members, including Rho Ventures' Habib Kairouz, managing partner, and Doug McCormick, a partner at Rho and former CEO of Lifetime Networks and iVillage. Benjamin Wolin, the co-founder and CEO of Waterfront Media, has also been named to TAN's board but did not participate in the round. TAN founder and CEO Cree Lawson said the company hoped to gain from their new board members' collective experience in the areas of branded media, network development, behavioral targeting and online advertising.