OpenAds, a free and Open Source ad network with more than 30 thousand installs, has announced a forthcoming hosted version of its service and another round of venture financing. RWW’s Sean Ammirati discussed OpenAds and the desirability of a hosted version in a May post here titled Google’s Potential Vulnerability – An Open Ad Network

The hosted version will be in Private Beta for the first several months, but publishers interested in requesting access to that beta can do so here. OpenAds also offers access to a demo version of its software on its own servers.

At a time when other ad networks are being scooped up by the biggest players for staggering sums, the Accel Partners led B round brings this Open Source company’s total raised to more than $20 million. The current round also included money from existing investors Index Ventures, First Round Capital, Mangrove Capital Partners and O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures. With this kind of backing you can expect to hear a lot more about OpenAds in the coming months.

In addition to its stand-alone software, OpenAds can also act as a platform for other ad networks to build on top of. FederatedMedia, to which this blog belongs, has reportedly taken this approach.

The new hosted version of OpenAds should dramatically lower the barrier to entry for new publishers. Watch this space.

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