Paris-based Qwarry snags €2 million to boost its cookie-free adtech solution

French startup Qwarry, specializing in advertising targeting, has raised €2 million from Normandie Participations, West Web Valley, Apicap and Crédit Agricole Innove in Normandy. 

Founded in 2019 by Geoffrey Berthon and Julie Walther, Qwarry has developed an advertising targeting solution that unusually doesn’t rely on cookies. Instead, the startup uses semantic data to allow advertisers to deliver targeted ads related to the content the user consumes. This is carried out without collecting private data or identifiers, such as age, sex, location or email address. 

“Semantics allow us to offer unique targeting because the advertising message is inserted according to the content read in real time by internet users and not according to data previously collected on them“, describes co-founder Julie Walther. 

Currently, GDPR requires that cookies be used only after the consent of the targeted user. In this age of fast-moving technology and regulations that are running behind to keep up, it could be that in the future companies are forced to permanently delete their cookies. In this case, Qwarry would be ready to lead this new path for targeted ads, and to offer a new solution. 

The startup aims to use the new funds raised to open an R&D center in Caen and plans to recruit 30 employees there. “We will accelerate our development and offer advertisers, publishers and media agencies to use Qwarry semantic data directly within their own advertising tools,“ comments co-founder Geoffrey Berthon.