As common as wallpaper

Ad targeting firm Specific Media says it will use the $100 million investment it just received in part to buy up smaller firms, reports BusinessWeek.

The $100 million comes from private equity firm Francisco Partners, over a year after Specific Media received $10 million in venture capital funding.

Buying smaller ad networks will expand Specific's reach, something it — and analysts — see as necessary in order to compete against the likes of Yahoo, Google and AOL in the display ad market.

Those three and a host of others have been buying up networks to build out their own reach.

But while Specific would prefer to be on the buying end of an acquisition deal, it wouldn't mind serving as an acquisition target either.

It's unclear what sort of ownership stake Francisco Partners took in exchange for its investment, so a valuation of the company is difficult. One analyst pegged the pre-investment value at $200 million.