• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, October 8, 2013

Digital Generation (DG) has scooped up Google Venture-backed startup Republic Project for $1.4 million to build out its social and mobile media services. The announcement was made Tuesday.

DG paid cash and earnings tied to revenue and EBITDA performance targets in 2014 and 2015. Republic Project CEO AJ Vernet and its 10 employees will join DG's Los Angeles office. The deal supports creative, targeting, retargeting and optimization services that DG MediaMind offers across display, mobile and now social advertising.

Republic Project's platform allows agencies and brands to create and deliver ads on social platforms such as Facebook and Twitter in less time than is typically required to produce and deliver campaigns. DG will bundle the services under the DG MediaMind umbrella.

Investors and advisers also included Venture51, 500Startups, Andrew Reise and Tomas Ryan, as well as Cory Treffiletti, SVP marketing at BlueKai.

Treffiletti was co-founder and board member of Republic Project, but he has not been involved in the business for the last two years beyond a board seat.

Republic Project got its start in 2008 as a rich media company for music marketing, supporting artists and celebrities like Smokey Robinson, Blackberry Smoke, Dexter Freebish and others.

Colin Sutton, U.S. director of OMD Word, consistently hunts for new opportunities that increase engagement, amplify the brand's content and deliver more from each media dollar spent in social. "Investments in new tools and technologies are guided by success and results, and rich media units in the newsfeed across Facebook and Twitter continue to prove their worth," he said in a prepared statement.

DG also recently announced an integration partnership with Marin Software that allows brands using the platforms from both companies to share information between media channels and analyze the data across campaigns.