14 DAY TRIAL // Investors and industry players are apparently becoming more confident in the rebound of the ad market. While AOL believes the market is heading for a revival, Yahoo and Microsoft start pouring some serious cash in marketing campaigns. Another sign is the $9 million in funding The Rubicon Project, an online ad inventory management company, just raised from Peacock Equity, the joint-venture fund owned by GE Capital and NBC Universal, which is in turn owned by GE and other investors.
“We’ve spent the last two years tackling the fragmented ad network landscape and creating the industry’s largest and most successful Ad Network Optimization solution. Our balance sheet is strong, revenue continues to grow at an exponential rate and we have become a major channel to bring new innovative products and services to the industry,” said Frank Addante, CEO and founder of the Rubicon Project. “With this capital, we’ll accelerate expansion of the platform through additional technology acquisitions, new market initiatives and global expansion.”
This is the third round of funding for the startup and existing investors Clearstone Venture Partners and Mayfield Fund put down $3 million with the rest provided by Peacock. With the $9 million, the total funding reaches $42 million for the two-year-old company. The latest round came just a few month ago, totaling $13 million. A new round of funding wasn't initially planed as the company didn't need the money but Peacock actually initiated the deal and Rubicon saw it as an opportunity to expand.
The company plans to spend the sum raised on acquisitions in the ad tech market and it has already identified five areas where it believes it could use some additional technology: optimization and data, international, mobile, video and local. There is no clear timeline for when to expect the acquisitions but Rubicon founder and CEO Frank Addante says he has already reviewed over 50 companies and some of them are still being considered.