Boulder-based ad-management firm raises $3.1M

BOULDER — Flytedesk Inc., which helps brands post and manage advertising on college campuses, has raised $3.1 million.

The company raised the funds by offering equity, according to a Form D filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Oct. 16.

Flytedesk helps brands reach college students by making it easy to buy ads through college newspapers, radio stations, digital media and billboards, said CEO Alex Kronman.

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Before Flytedesk, most brands would have to connect to campus email through individual cold calls. But Kronman said he saw an opportunity after working at the school newspaper at Colorado College in Colorado Springs and then working for advertising firm Crispin Porter + Bogusky in Boulder after graduating.

Through Flytedesk, brands can use its platform to select what region, demographic and colleges they want their advertising campaign to reach by creating what custom audience they want. They can select what media, whether it be college newspapers or billboards or online. Then they upload the creative elements of the campaign and it gets pushed out to the campus media groups they selected to target. They can also use Flytedesk’s platform to monitor their ad campaign.

Kronman said the funding the company raised will go to building out its Boulder engineering team and its New York and Washington, D.C., sales offices by hiring more people.

Although the company does a lot of sales out of New York and Washington — Kronman said a lot of political advertisers use Flytedesk — having its engineering and headquarters in Boulder was the right fit.

“Everything that Boulder has to offer is deeply integrated with us,” he said. “We did the Boomtown accelerator then Techstars. Our team loves Boulder. And we think we can attract a lot of talent from folks that might live in New York, Los Angeles or San Francisco but see Boulder as an attractive place to be located. Tech jobs are blossoming here.”