Todd Sawicki at Ignite. Photo via Randy Stewart
Todd Sawicki. Photo via Randy Stewart

Zemanta has landed new cash and a new CEO. The company announced today that Seattle startup vet Todd Sawicki, who had been serving as president, has been elevated to the role of CEO. It also announced an additional $2 million in financing from Union Square Ventures and Social Starts, money it will use to invest in its “content-based ad technology” and build out the sales and marketing teams.

Zemanta’s online tools are used by publishers to offer recommended content. It also helps brands insert content across multiple distribution points.

Zemanta is a distributed startup, with the development team in Slovenia and some operations in New York and San Francisco. Sawicki will remain in Seattle, but will travel frequently to the company’s other outposts.

“I have to travel a lot to NY, SF and Europe — but I have done that for years, but Seattle is home,” says Sawicki in an email.

Sawicki, a former executive at Cheezburger who previously led marketing at Lookery, Loudeye and Zango, was introduced to the Zemanta team at the 2008 London Seedcamp event.

He met founders Bostjan Spetic and Andraz Tori at the event where both were serving as startup mentors. Spetic will continue to serve the company as chief product officer, running the development team out of Slovenia.

Below is a recent video presentation in which Sawicki talks about the concept of Zemanta.

“In a world where content becomes an ad, our job is to help you figure out where to put that and how to make it happen,” Sawicki says. “It can appear in the form of links. It can appear in the form of recommendations. It can appear in the form of full articles. All of that will be new ad types that you will be involved with and using. Why? Because it works. Consumers use it and engage with it.”

Tech Talk with Zemanta from Digiday on Vimeo.

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