The Rubicon Project Raised $21 Million Funding
On January 28, 2008, The Rubicon Project, a new company with a mission to make online advertising more efficient and transparent has raised $21 million in total capital with a $15 million follow-on to the $6 million financing the company announced four months ago on October 8.
The new Series B round was led by Mayfield Fund with participation from IDG Ventures Asia;
Stanford University; University of California Berkeley; Matt Coffin, founder and former CEO
of LowerMyBills.com and Clearstone Venture Partners, the company’s Series A investor.
The additional capital will fuel future business growth initiatives including international
expansion, strategic acquisitions, research and development and infrastructure required to
support the influx of websites signing up for the company’s new ad network optimization
service.
According to the company, $27 billion was spent advertising online in 2007, yet 80% of ad
space goes unsold by websites directly. Unsold ad space is sent to ad networks (e.g. Google
AdSense, Yahoo! Publisher Network, Tacoda,Tribal Fusion, HispanoClick, etc.) to monetize.
As the total online advertising market has grown, so has the number of ad networks.
Today, advertisers spread money across 300+ ad networks, creating a world of chaos and confusion.
Websites lack the technology, visibility and expertise required to manage multiple ad networks
to fully monetize their ad space.
To help solving this growing problem, on October 8, 2007, The Rubicon Project announced a new
service for websites to generate mad cash from the ads on their site by optimizing ad networks.
Websites using the Rubicon Project solution have seen revenue increases ranging from 33% to 300%.
Raj Kapoor, managing director, Mayfield Fund said:
“There is no question this has been a burning problem for websites. In the twelve weeks since
our launch, more than 3,000 websites have signed up and we have optimized more than 4 billion
ads across 50 of the top ad networks,” said Frank Addante, CEO and Founder, “This has never
been done before. We have created the world’s first free-flow market between ad networks and
websites. Our solution is 4 billion pieces of information smarter today than when we started.
And now with the additional financing, we have everything we need to run full force at attacking
this global problem; a killer team, a game-changing product and a deep source of capital to
continue investing heavily in the research and development of our smart matching algorithms.
Successful companies are driven by the best ideas executed by the brightest minds at the right
time. the Rubicon Project has all three and is in the perfect storm as advertisers move swiftly
online and web publishers are overwhelmed by choice and complexity in monetizing their inventory with ad networks.”
Extreme Market Demand has already attracted 3,000 websites to sign-Up for this Ad Network
Optimization Service. Several of my sites are included in Beta.
Webmasters looking to make more money while doing less work should visit:
http://www.rubiconproject.com
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