FLYCAST, WITH BUSINESS MODEL SETTLED, RAISES $17M.

Flycast Communications Corp, one of the many advertising networks jostling for web ad dollars, has raised $17m in third round funding and appointed a new chief financial officer. The company has reinvented itself twice in the last 12 months in an attempt to catch up with the likes of DoubleClick Inc and is on its third chief executive in as many years. This round sees new investment coming from BellSouth, SBC Communications, US West and Comdisco Ventures, adding to the original investors Bessemer Venture Partners, Charles River Ventures and St Paul Venture Capital, all of whom went round again this time. San Francisco-based Flycast replaced its CEO, Miles Walsh last May after a 14-month start-up tenure and re-launched itself in October. It dropped its distinctive branding and refocused on providing services to the web publisher and advertising communities, rather than trying to sell them software tools to administer their own campaigns, which did not go down well with the market, says the company. At the same time it signed a deal with BellSouth for it to resell ad impressions in its area in the south east part of the US. It now believes its business model both works and differentiates it from DoubleClick, 24/7 Media and other rivals. The inclusion of the other regional telcos as investors perhaps points the way to coming deals. George Garrick, the former CEO at Nielsen Marketing Research and Information Resources Inc (IRI) joined the company as CEO in May. The new CFO announced yesterday is Ralph Harms, previo usly at ESS Technology and is Flycast's first dedicated CFO. Flycast is still privately held but says it always has one eye on the market, but has no plans right now.