Three years ago, Axel Springer entered the DooH market with a major invest in Framen. Now Europe’s largest publishing house is providing additional growth capital to Framen for further expansion in new markets. With the double-digital million invest Framen successfully completed the next financing round.
The DooH provider Framen receives fresh financing from Axel Springer. The publishing group acquired the majority of shares in the Berlin start-up in 2020 and thus entered the DooH market. Framen now programmatically markets DooH and CTV inventory in more than 24 countries in Europe and beyond. In the next growth phase – enabled by the new investment – the DooH Scale-up aims to expand to another ten markets.
Initial focus on Spain, Italy, Poland and Scandinavia
The initial focus of the expansion is on Spain, Italy, Poland, Norway, Sweden and Denmark. Unlike in France and Great Britain, where Framen established its own subsidiaries, the new markets will be developed out of Berlin with local sales staff in the market. Framen is already recording first sales in these new markets.
Framen is not a typical DooH media owner but follows an asset-light strategy. Instead of investing in own screens, Framen sells advertisement mixed with free editorial content to existing fleets of indoor screens. The operators, such as hotel chains or retailers, receive access to Framens CMS Ads Manager and a share of the DooH advertising revenue.
Investments in programmatic and content creation
The new capital will flow into enhancing the Framen’s programmatic DooH platform. This includes new features and an improved user experience. The scale-up also plans to expand its ecosystem beyond DooH – including streaming, entertainment and CTV.
Framing doesn’t just want to be a media sales house. With Framen Ads Manager, the Springer investment also offers a content creator studio for images and videos. Next steps on the roadmap are the introduction of a creator program that taps into DooH, CTV and social media budgets.
Through Axel Springer, Framen benefits from access to AI platforms such as OpenAI. Goal is to develop new AI tools, both for initial content creation and for Dynamic Content Optimization (DCO) to continuously optimize content.
“We greatly value the ongoing partnership with Axel Springer and are pleased with the trust they continue to place in Framen’s future. France and Great Britain have established themselves successfully because we have support from the group on many levels,” says Dimitri Gärtner, CEO and co-founder of Framen.
Framing expands teams
Axel Springer and Framen also want to invest in the subsidiaries in Great Britain and France: both country teams will receive additional personnel in the areas of media sales, SaaS sales and local marketing.
Cherif Roussi, who has been in charge of DooH sales at Springer’s sales unit Media Impact for the last three years, has taken over the position of VP Sales DACH directly at Framen. Paul Thümer, formerly Director Sales DACH, will act as VP Sales Central Europe and is responsible for building teams in Italy, Poland and Scandinavia. He will work with Ali Atcha, who is promoted to VP Sales Nordics in Oslo. Manuel Garza, previous CFO, will take on the role of VP Sales Iberia at the start of 2024. In this role he will build a local team in Spain and Portugal.
