Adgile Media Group raises $5M for out-of-home ads business

Adgile Media Group, a New York-based out-of-home advertising company that sells trackable ads on trucks, raised $5 million.

Why it matters: Adgile saw opportunity in modernizing a traditional business — ads on trucks — as interest in OOH grows with digital and social ads getting pricier.

Details: The round was led by Brand Foundry Ventures, the early-stage venture capital firm, and general partner Brian Spaly has joined the board.

• Other participants were Amity Supply, Finn Capital Partners, Consumer Ventures, marketing consultant Nik Sharma, entrepreneur Hannah Bronfman, Everlane founder Michael Preysman, Niche Capital, KBP Brands co-founder Barry Dubin and Rothy's executive Chris Hull.

💭 Kerry's thought bubble: Brand Foundry is known for its investments in consumer brands like Allbirds, so an investment in advertising is particularly intriguing.

Catch up quick: COO Tom Shea and President Max Flannery co-founded Adgile in 2018 at the University of Chicago's New Venture Challenge.

• Flannery says he was inspired after seeing a small screen on the back of the truck advertising Applebee's. "I looked up where the closest Applebee's was, and it was an hour and a half away," he tells Kerry. "That doesn't seem like effective advertising."
• They started buying weatherproof digital screens that could track the time and location and putting them on trucks. Prior to this round, they raised about $400,000 from friends and family.
• Adgile works with about 100,000 trucks. Its ad clients include many direct-to-consumer brands such as Topicals Skincare, non-alcoholic apéritif Ghia and Asian food company Fly by Jing. It recently started working with T-Mobile and Planet Fitness.

What's next: Adgile plans to grow from 13 employees to more than 20 by end of year, hiring in sales, operations, account management and data science.

The bottom line: "Not only are we seeing that our service is sticky with our advertising clients, but it's the same thing we're seeing with the trucking industry," Flannery says. "If we're offering a monthly subsidy to advertise on the side of their assets, for a lot of these companies, it's a lifeline."