Lijit Networks, Inc., a company that provides search-powered applications for both individual online publishers and online publisher networks, has closed a $7.1 million series C round of financing, led by Foundry Group.

Existing investors ($900K in series A and $3.3 Million in series B) Boulder Ventures and Colorado Fund I, managed by High Country Venture, also participated in the round. Lijit will use the proceeds from this financing to launch its search-powered ad network, which empowers publishers to sell their own search ad inventory, as well as to expand its offices and employee base.

Lijit recently concluded a detailed analysis of how its search-powered applications generate value for networks of publishers. In partnership with b5media, Lijit installed its search application across all sites in the b5media network, then compared the performance of b5media’s standard search box against Lijit’s search application. Lijit’s search produced three times the search traffic of the standard search box. Lijit makes its first appearance in Read/Write Web’s Top 100 Alternative Search Engine list.

“Since inception, Lijit has continually exceeded its business objectives,” said Todd Vernon founder and CEO of Lijit. “This significant investment gives us the resources required to continue that growth trajectory, expand the services we provide to our publishers, and continue to add top notch people to our team.”

Individual publishers utilize Lijit to increase engagement with their readers. Technology expert and syndicated columnist Dave Taylor utilizes Lijit’s Re-Search application, part of the standard Lijit Search widget installation, on his popular tech support site, AskDaveTaylor.com. “About 80% of traffic on AskDaveTaylor comes from search engines like Google,” said Taylor. “When readers click through from search results, the Lijit Search widget finds other content on my site and proactively promotes it, keeping readers on the site longer.”