Dozens of news sites are teaming up with this Dumbo-based adtech startup

The lines between editorial content and advertising are getting blurrier and blurrier (or more seamless, depending on your view of things). Whether it’s inline ads, sponsored content or embedded video leading off the 15-second YouTube clip you wanted to watch, advertising and editorial sit ever closer together. One company, though, is making a strong profit by further whirring ads and stories together.
Velocity Made Good is a Dumbo-based company that has created Avalanche, a new product that makes it simple to mix ads in with content carousels and other forms of aiding reader discovery.
Think of those parts of a news site where there are lots of stories with big photos over the top. They can be grids or carousels or take other forms. It’s the part of the site where the publisher is trying to keep you reading. Avalanche makes it simple to mix ads into those parts of the site, so that as a reader is scrolling around, the ad will expand and entice you to click, just as a piece of content would.
Founded by Chris Batty, the theory behind Velocity Made Good is that by mixing ads in with these parts of a site, they actually register for readers, unlike display ads that largely get tuned out. It probably goes without saying, but the company puts a big emphasis on the mobile friendliness of its ads in what Velocity Made Good refers to as the “touch web.”
The company doesn’t sell the ads; it just builds the system. Velocity Made Good only works with “a finite set of premium publishers,” according to its FAQ page — in other words, publishers selling complex packages that can mix this one in. For example, Business Insider, Slate, Time, Conde Nast and the Washington Post are all using Avalanche, according to a story on the Wall Street Journal’s content blog.
The story includes this relevant note about Brooklyn media megalith Vice:

Mr. Batty said that 230 Avalanche campaigns have been run to date. The company worked with just four publishers in 2013, and that number jumped to 30 last year.
Vice is one of those publishers. The company liked the ads so much that Vice Media made a small investment in VMG.
“[The Avalanche] delineates between editorial and ads, but puts them in a package that is less jarring. That’s important for sites with limited real estate,” said Andrew Creighton, president at Vice. Vice has run 13 Avalanche campaigns so far.

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Other advertising networks in Brooklyn include Nectar Ads and BlankSlate, which just acquired Brownstoner.