Jun 21, 2010 07:04 ET

SOURCE: Inform Technologies

NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwire - June 21, 2010) - Inform Technologies, a leading developer and provider of semantic web solutions, today announced it received $4 million in Series 1 funding and that Tony Dunaif, former SVP at Internet Broadcasting, has joined the company as Chief Marketing Officer (CMO). The financing round was led by existing investors Spark Capital, The Stephens Group, and The Oklahoma Publishing Company.

Publishing is undergoing a radical transformation as content creators seek to drive cost and complexity out of the editorial process, while at the same time delivering more useful and comprehensive user experiences. Inform's solutions use proprietary semantic web processes to automate content categorization and relevancy matching along with the association of contextually related articles, images, and videos from a publisher's archive or from across the web. Publishers consequently see higher user engagement and the corresponding increase in page-views and ad impressions generates additional revenue.

"We're delighted to announce the new funding for Inform," said Rob Balazy, CEO of Inform. "Enterprise scale publishers have an opportunity to create and manage their content more efficiently and there is an obvious application for semantic web technology. Our applications tag content objects and make the process of surfacing related content a fully automated endeavor, which results in significant cost savings and SEO benefit. With our new round of capital and the addition of Tony Dunaif to the management team we now have the technology, the capital, and the people to further innovate in the semantic web space."

"Inform has a best of breed solution for creating value for publishers through increased traffic and revenue," said Santo Politi, General Partner at Spark Capital. "As the online publishing industry continues to expand, and new opportunities around content generation are invented, we believe that Inform has a head start."

In his role as CMO, Dunaif will facilitate all company sales and marketing initiatives and internal, external communications.

"Tony brings an exceptional level of expertise in online publishing and will provide Inform with additional insight and capabilities to further meet the needs of publishers," said Rob Balazy, CEO of Inform. "I look forward to working closely with Tony and the rest of the team as we continue to aggressively expand our product suite and add publishers to our already established content publication network."

"I'm thrilled to be part of a company that is keenly focused on enhancing the content experience for consumers and driving value for publishers," said Dunaif. "Inform's technology increases site monetization potential and attracts new visitors to publishers' websites via SEO. In essence, Inform delivers more relevance, and that benefits consumers, advertisers, and publishers."

Digital media-veteran Dunaif brings more than 18 years of marketing experience to Inform. Prior to joining Inform, Dunaif served as Senior Vice President of Market Development at Internet Broadcasting where he was responsible for growing major external relationships as well as developing and executing strategies around the company's mobile initiatives. Previously, he served as Vice President, Content Partnerships and International Development at Brightcove where he was responsible for closing business agreements with leading media companies, both domestically and abroad. Dunaif has also held senior-level positions throughout his 12-year tenure at MTV Networks. He earned a BA in English Literature from Union College and an MBA from IESE, the International Graduate School of Management, based in Barcelona, Spain.

About Inform
Backed by Spark Capital, The Stephens Group, and The Oklahoma Publishing Company, Inform is a leading developer of semantic web solutions used by some of the web's most authoritative publishers. Inform's technology suite automates keyword extraction and related content mapping to help publishers of all sizes form more definitive destinations, thereby increasing user engagement and revenue.

For more information, visit www.inform.com

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