The story
2011
20 pays
400 employés
3 continents
1200 clients
200 Millions de dollars de CA
Fully-mastered technology, innovation and the right model, CPP, has allowed Criteo to achieve the same success as in France, in a very short time. With this rollout and dazzling international growth, Criteo raised a third round of funding worth a further $ 7 million. 10 new markets opened on 3 continents.
The year in which Criteo developed its retargeting technology. This enables dynamic determination of the right time, the right player and the right content for displaying the banner. Criteo suggested a CPP model, an innovation in the world of display advertising. This allowed Criteo to win over the leading French e-dealers: La Redoute, 3 Suisses, Cdiscount and others. In the same year, Criteo decided to open a subsidiary in the US, setting up a base in Palo Alto, Silicon Valley.
The team took on new members from the world of advertising, who soon made their own changes to the original model. They decided to develop a merchandising model based on advertising space bought from a wide range of content providers. This new business model enabled Criteo to raise a further $7 million. June saw the official launch of Criteo’s personalized retargeting solution and the firm has never looked back since.
The team decided to apply their recommendation driving to shopping and offers their online merchandising module, Criteo Widgets, to dealers. At that stage, the plug and play Widgets could be downloaded directly from Criteo website. They enabled internet user browsing and behavior to be tracked on dealer websites in real time, with the aim of suggesting the right product to customers. During this period, Criteo developed a wealth of reliable technology.
At this stage, the product was still a long way from what it is now. But the year was to mark a decisive transition for the start-up. With a growing awareness that mass-market business wasn’t the best option and that business with companies was slow and hard to put in place, Criteo began to set up its retargeting technology on popular blogs as a springboard from which to be recommended to other, similar blogs. This relatively low profile proved to be an excellent way for the team to test, correct and optimize their technology.
Romain, another refugee from Microsoft, left the US to join Franck and the project. The founders joined the Agoranov business incubator to develop their first idea: a mass-market product advice website. During this début experience they met French serial entrepreneur, founder of K-Mobile Kiwee, who joined the team. Making the most of the trend and with high levels of traffic on their site, they raised 3 million dollars. This initial investment allowed the young founders to put a lot of capital into R&D.
2004
The adventure began when Franck decided to quit his job at Microsoft.
He started work on his first algorithm series in his garage.