The $25 Million Demo. Yext Scores A Big Round From IVP After TechCrunch50 Debut.

Howard Lerman can be a little intense. After the CEO of Yext finished his demo at this year's Techcrunch50 (embedded below) he left one judge "speechless," and during rehearsals Michael took him aside and asked him, "Are you on drugs?" He wasn't. Lerman just has the heightened dopamine levels of an entrepreneur. And he hadn't slept for 45 days because he was pushing his New York City startup to relaunch on an entirely new technology platform for TechCrunch50 Over the past three years, Lerman and his co-founders (who all went to the same high school together in Virginia), have built a local advertising business under everyone's nose that is on track to generate $20 million in revenues this year.Yext is going after the huge, entrenched Yellow Pages business with online ads for local businesses that result in phone calls instead of clicks. Today, he closed a $25 million round of funding led by Institutional Venture Partners.