Lotame, a behavioral targeter that focuses on social networking sites, has raised a “multi-million” first round funding; a source tells us it’s roughly $10 million. The round was led by Battery Ventures, with participation from existing investors Hillcrest Management and Betaworks. The company raised around $2 million in angel funding in November 2006.

Lotame, which has offices in Elkridge, MD, and New York City, is careful not to try to position itself as an ad network, as it doesn’t want to be lumped into an area that’s become increasingly crowded and diffuse. The company is headed by Andrew Monfried, a former Advertising.com exec. He stresses that unlike an ad network, “we share all of our data and knowledge with our clients before, during, and after we deliver campaigns.”

When I spoke to him at an ad meetup in December, he discussed the company’s focus on social networking. Monfried said that too many marketers look at social networking in the same way they place ads on other media: buying banner ads aligned to the content on a particular site. Since most social networks are fairly open-ended and don’t offer those sorts of easy targeting, Lotame’s proposition is that it can match ad messages to the conversations and behavior occurring within online communities. Lotame gathers its data from cookies, users’ responses to ads and information in member profiles. Release