Having managed to survive the dot-com meltdown and a lingering advertising recession, Toronto-based adbeast is preparing for its first foray into the U.S. According to head of business development William Cranor, the company hopes to have its first L.A.-based sales agent set up early in the New Year.

Adbeast has grown its client list from 11 in January to more than 35, a roll that includes Bensimon Byrne D’Arcy, Cossette Communication-Marketing, Radke Films, Spy Films and Flashcut.

‘We’re in a really good position here and we’re looking to make our play in the U.S.,’ says Cranor, who adds adbeast’s U.S. rollout is about six months behind due to the economic uncertainties. ‘Everything is predicated on financing,’ he says. ‘We had to hunker down, pull up our boot straps and take care of our Canadian clients.’

Founded by Cranor and former agency executive Steve Hancock, adbeast allows agencies, production companies and other production suppliers to digitally archive, manage and share creative material online.

The company has a unique position in Canada and there remains only a handful of similar operations around the world, including Beam TV in the U.K. But there is nothing approaching adbeast’s capabilities in the U.S. in terms of content management, Cranor says. That’s because the U.S. market was hit harder by both the bursting of the dot-com bubble and the recession.

Adbeast plans to leverage its relationships with Canadian production suppliers, most of whom have established affiliations in the U.S. ‘We’ll let it bubble from the ground up,’ Cranor says, indicating the company plans to start with prodcos before making a play on the agency side.

-www.adbeast.com