Our Philosophy kbs+ Ventures, as the thematic investment arm of kirshenbaum bond senecal and partners, backs early-stage entrepreneurs with big ideas in advertising and marketing technology. We're interested in learning about all innovative ideas within the advertising and marketing technology ecosystem, but we are particularly interested in ideas that hit on one of more of our key themes:

• Harness the massive disruptions created by increasing data in the advertising and marketing ecosystem. While "big data" gets a tremendous amount of attention, the fact is that marketers have always attempted to leverage the newest and largest sources of data available to them to target and optimize their advertising and marketing strategies. But with every attempted solution comes a new problem, a new innovation, a new source of data, a new audience to target. Whether it's web, audience, social, geo, or intent data, data has always been and will always be a key in creating and optimizing advertising and marketing strategies. • Leverage digital technologies to "pull" marketing rather than "push" marketing. Push marketing has always been the foundation of the marketing and advertising industry, but marketers have an increasing opportunity to pull marketing by leveraging public, individualized communication, creation and curation platforms to "help demand find supply." • Are innovating in mobile advertising and mobile marketing. The lessons from the "big web" are continuing to play out in the "small web", but the learnings don't necessarily apply in the same way. The way we use the big web is different from how we use the small web: shouldn't the advertising and marketing be different too? • Are B2B-focused and sell to brands and agencies. We know what agencies want. We know what brands want. And we know how they work with innovative technologies and companies. We bring that knowledge to help us select the ideas and technologies capable on having an impact in the industry.

Why focus on advertising and marketing technology? We believe that by investing in the early stage digital ecosystem, it delivers on our pillars of transformational business growth and will positively affect our agency, our clients, and entrepreneurs.

• Shared Accountability: By investing in early stage companies, we take minority ownership and have accountability in their performance. • Curated Collision: By hand selecting passionate entrepreneurs with big ideas, we’re able to tap into their collective brains to help us think through challenges and come up with multitudes of solutions. • Speed2Genius: Early stage technology companies move faster than most organizations both strategically and tactically. They come up with big ideas and execute quickly. The cost of waiting has risen and these early stage companies and kbs+ Ventures dually understand this. • Technology & Innovation: These companies are at the forefront of technological innovation and kbs+ and our clients can learn a lot from them.

kbs+ Ventures works with each of our portfolio companies to help them work with agencies, brands, and the larger advertising and marketing ecosystem. In the process, kbs+ Ventures shares key learnings and knowledge about early-stage technology innovation with kbs+, our clients, and our employees. This provides inspiration and opportunity to our team at large and allows us and our clients to understand these new and innovative spaces. While the world does not need another corporate investment vehicle, it does need a corporate investment vehicle that is entrepreneurial and has a business transformation background. Being that kbs+ has been in business for over 20 years helping worldwide brands position and market themselves, we bring lots of credibility to early stage organizations on business and marketing strategy. Access to the resources of kbs+ and sister agencies under the MDC Partners umbrella is part of our investment and are key components to how we deliver value beyond a simple check. If this sounds interesting to you, we’d love to chat. Contact us.