Facebook buys video advertising technology company LiveRail

Facebook has announced the acquisition of online video advertising technology company LiveRail.

There was no disclosure of the deal amount for the seven-year-old LiveRail by the companies.

''What LiveRail ultimately offers is a complete advertising solution for video publishers,'' Facebook vice president of ads product marketing Brian Boland said in a blog post.

''We believe that LiveRail, Facebook, and the premium publishers it serves have an opportunity to make video ads better and more relevant for the hundreds of millions of people who watch digital video every month.''

LiveRail's list of customers include ABC, Dailymotion, A&E Networks, and Major League Baseball website MLB.com.

San Francisco-based LiveRail projects itself as the largest programmatic platform in the world for effective targeting of video ads to online viewers.

The company with 170 employees delivers over 7 billion video ads each month for hundreds of customers.

''Our goal at LiveRail has been to build the best technology in the world to help connect the digital video advertising ecosystem,'' the company said in an online post.

Meanwhile, TechCruch reported citing a source that the social network paid between $400 million and $500 million for LiveRail, but Facebook refused to comment on the terms.

LiveRail founded in 2007 by Sergiu Biris, Andrei Dunca and Mark Trefgarne had notched up $ 100 million in revenue in 2013.

LiveRail's supply side platform had a large customer base that included Major League Baseball, ABC Family, A&E Networks, Gannett, and Dailymotion.

LiveRail offered publishers video ad targeting tech to allow them to make money routing messages to customers they would be relevant to. It also helped marketers connect with sites and apps with open video ad inventory.

The company operates offices in Cluj, London, New York and San Francisco and last year took the second spot in the ranking of US video-ad suppliers.

LiveRail's shareholding structure was confidential, though, it was known that Pond Ventures invested $12 million over the last years.

Facebook said it would invest in keeping LiveRail running and was evaluating how to intermingle their data, but it planned to use its data to aid LiveRail with its targeting and vice-versa.

According to commentators, the acquisition of the 170-person company could help Facebook own a bigger chunk of video advertising, the fasting growing internet ad medium.