Newcastle and San Diego-based Ezoic has secured a tranche of venture capital funding aimed at helping bring its BETA product to market in early 2014.

Balderton Capital, the firm behind investments in 3D Hubs, QuBit and HouseTrip, has led the transaction alongside New Amsterdam Capital and other private investors.

Founded in 2010 by Dwayne Lafleur, Ezoic has developed a product to automate the process of site layout to improve advertising revenue. Through a process it describes as ‘multivariate testing’, its offering continuously tests different layouts of the same content to enhance overall user experience and improve advertising revenue.

While its product is still in a private BETA, the business hopes to use the $5.6 million (£3.5 million) it has banked to speed up its software development with an aim to launching in the first quarter of 2014.

The business’ headquarters are in San Diego and it also has a base in the North East of England, with a customer service centre located in Newcastle’s emerging tech hub

John Cole, CCO of Ezoic, says that improving a site’s layout can have a ‘dramatic’ effect on how a user browses.

‘Independent website owners currently struggle to compete with larger digital publishers who are better resourced to create and test a large number of layouts for all devices,’ he adds.

‘Ezoic aims to level the playing field by offering a fully-automated platform for digital publishers who want to improve user experience and ad income.’

Balderton Capital’s 2013 dealmaking has seen it most recently back the growth efforts of Amsterdam-based 3D Hubs, a platform connecting owners and users of 3D prints, and online marketplace Vestiaire Collective.

More on Balderton Capital deals:

• Wonga investor backs archify with seed with seed funding
• Livebookings gets its teeth into new £15 milliion VC round
• Atlas and Balderton back Psykosoft

Mark Evans, partner at Balderton Capital, comments, ‘We’ve invested in Ezoic because it’s a revolutionary business run by an exceptional team operating in a space with huge global potential.

‘Digital advertising spend is growing 18 per cent year-on-year worldwide and it’s time that smaller publishers claimed their share of that market.’