Irish tech firm Pagefair raises $400,000 in funding

Dublin-based analytics and advertising firm PageFairhas raised $400,000 in new funding from Tribal Ventures, Frontline Ventures and Enterprise Ireland.

The company, which was founded in 2012 by entrepreneurs Sean Blanchfield, Brian McDonnell and Neil O'Connor, specialises in helping websites deal with adblocking technology. Pagefair said its technology is used by more than 1,000 web publishers to monitor and counteract the software, which removes advertising from web pages.

Chief executive Sean Blanchfield said the funding would allow the company to establish itself in US clusters where its publisher partners were based.

Although adblocking is often seen as desirable for web users, the websites that rely on the money generated from ads can find it problematic. Pagefair is currently signing up 50 publishers a week.

"PageFair has succeeded in getting the kind of rapid international traction reserved for startups that are solving a critical and expensive problem," said Conor Stanley, partner at Tribal Ventures.