ContextWeb stepped into a crowded ring of contextual advertising solutions, with the launch of ContextAd, and news of $3 million in venture funding. The funding was led by Draper Fisher Jurvetson Gotham Ventures, with additional funding by DFJ New England and DFJ California.

Like Google’s AdSense and Overture’s ContentMatch, ContextAd analyzes keywords and page content to match a page with relevant ads. Unlike its larger competitors, it uses a taxonomy-based algorithm to clarify the difference between identical words used in different contexts.