With venture capital hard to attract these days as recent statistics clearly indicate, investors are most comfortable making deals with:

1. Entrepreneurs who have a proven track record.

2. Entrepreneurs they already know.

In both cases, Troy McConnell, chief executive officer of Audience Fuel met the requirements of Raleigh-based Southern Capitol Ventures.

AudienceFuel, a startup with offices in Greensboro and New York Cit, focuses on delivering “premium audiences” to online advertisers. They concept and results demonstrated thus far enabled the firm to land financing from Southern Capitol.

First, McConnell established and grew Batanga, an Internet content and commerce site focused on Hispanics.

Second, Southern Capitol had invested in Batanga.

So when McConnell, whose company Clever on Demand, acquired AudienceFuel last September, approached Jason Caplain and Dave Joines of Southern Capitol about participating in a “seed round” of capital, they listened. 

“This is our second time working with Troy McConnell and we have known him for almost 10 years,” Caplain tells WRALTechWire.

But friendship only goes so far in VC land.

Results are required, too. And Caplain says he likes what he’s seeing in AudienceFuel.

“The progress they have already made has been substantial,” he explains. “In March they had almost 1 billion ad impressions, across 150 websites, running more than 250 ad campaigns and generating almost 2 million clicks.”

Customers are signing on, Caplain adds. 

“Their customer list includes a lot of household names and the feedback from those customers very much impressed us,” he says. “Their traction in adding new customers plus their unique position in helping premium publishers build their revenue and lower their costs convinced us to invest.”

The funding amount was not disclosed. 

Southern Capitol also likes to invest in the Internet media market, as demonstrated by the Batanga backing.

“As Troy knows, its an industry we know very well and we wasted no time in jumping in and helping them grow their existing sales pipeline,” Caplain explains.

AudienceFuel’s platform is designed to help  publishers use unsold ad inventory to purchase promotions and traffic, thus providing a sales channel that doesn’t conflict with other sales efforts.

Notes the firm’s website in explaining the technology (see graphic with this post): “Using AudienceFuel’s publisher-to-publisher inventory exchange, you may earn $1.50+ CPM [cost per 1,000 impressions] on your inventory, and the credit you earn buys up to 3X the media you’d get for the same cost using other advertising outlets.”

Southern Capitol brings more to AudienceFuel than marketing, McConnell noted. 

“I’m happy to have Southern Capitol as part of the core team at AudienceFuel,” he said in a statement when the deal was announced. “They work hard to help the companies they invest in with introductions, lead generation and insight to market conditions.”

(Editor’s note: Capitol Broadcasting, the parent firm of WRALTechWire, is an investor in Southern Capitol Ventures.)