AdReady is a company in transition, but one of the firm’s earliest venture backers still believes in the core mission of helping small and medium-sized businesses bolster their online display advertising efforts. Madrona Venture Group, outgoing CEO Karl Siebrecht and others have pumped an additional $500,000 in cash into the company.

The money comes a month after Siebrecht; Senior Vice President of Sales, Service and Marketing Randy Wootton; and Senior Vice President of Product and Business Development Matt Carr and others stepped down, reducing the company’s burn rate and getting it to an operating profit. That followed a layoff of about 10 staffers earlier this year.

AdReady had previously raised about $17 million from Madrona, Bain Capital and Khosla Ventures, fueled by the promise that it could revolutionize online display advertising for smaller businesses that had yet to make the leap beyond search campaigns.

Greg Gottesman

Greg Gottesman, a partner at Madrona Venture Group, said that transition has taken longer than they had hoped. But he’s still bullish that it will happen, and AdReady can lead the way.

“For the medium-sized business, I think this is the best platform in the world to run display (advertising),” said Gottesman.

As such, the company recently secured contract extensions with Alaska Airlines, Yahoo and ESPN. Incoming CEO Aaron Averbuch said that the company retains a strong position in the marketplace, and the new funding is validation of the recent customer successes and where AdReady is headed as a business.

Gottesman remains on the board along with former aQuantive CEO and Madrona partner Brian McAndrews. But there have been other changes in the board room, namely the departures of Hulu CEO Jason Kilar and Concur CEO Steve Singh.

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