Video ad management platform Honeycomb has closed a £3m Series A funding round, led by private equity firm Beringea.

Honeycomb aims to remove inefficiencies in the ad delivery process, claiming it at least halves the time for ads to be placed and submitted from agencies and post-production houses, to broadcasters and online publishers. Looking ahead, its platform aims to enable programmatic buying of TV advertising within one or two years.

In the short term, though, the investment will help Honeycomb roll out its offering into 11 additional markets, including the US.

Honeycomb was set up by James Carpenter and Richard Carter, formerly co-founders of Australian digital ad platform Adstream. After starting operations last summer, the platform launched in August this year, and is now available in the UK, Ireland, Germany, Austria and Holland.

“This show of confidence provides the solid foundation we need as we set our sights on the rest of the world,” said James Carpenter, Founder of Honeycomb. “We’re not just focused on international expansion, though. Our platform lays the groundwork for addressable and eventually programmatic TV – a more targeted and automated method of buying TV adverts which allows a purchase based on audience data rather than ratings of specific channels or shows. This is a widely talked-about but unrealised concept. But with the support of our partner clients, our individual investors, and now Beringea, we have the capability to bring this technology to market in the near future.”