Boston's Ascent, Philly founders back Sidecar ad tech shop

Ascent Venture Partners, Boston, last month joined a list of Philadelphia investors in pumping $8 million into Sidecar, Andre Golsorkhi's Center City firm which in its current incarnation builds software to boost the "precision and frequency of "programmatic, product-level advertising" -- the ads you see on Google when you search for sneakers, for example -- which Golsorkhi calls "are the best and most efficient way to connect people with the most relevant products."

Ascent joins a list of Philadelphia-area software investors, many of whom backed Sidecar's previous $7 milion round: Osage Venture Partners; Fanatics owner Michael Rubin; AppLabs ex-boss Sasha Reddi; Jonathan Brassington, boss of IT contractor LiquidHub; Paul Melchiorre, boss of iPipeline; Michael Phelan, past CEO at SevOne; Scott Tarte of Sparks; marketing mogul and philanthropist Richard Vague; Quench CEO Tony Ibarguen; NextStage Capital, Robin Hood Ventures, state-backed Ben Franklin Technology Partners, Innovation Capital Advisers, and ARC Angel Fund. Brings Sidecar's total to $15 million.

"Investment in product-level advertising continues to increase," Ascent general partner Luke Burns said in a statement. "Sidecar has tremendous growth potential." Golsorkhi said he'll use the money to "expand our technology quickly."