Longboard Media is celebrating its two year anniversary and has revealed some amazing growth numbers, crystalizing its position as the largest ad network in the ecommerce space.
Co-founded in November 2008 by former eBay and Shopping.com employees Scott Engler and Jim Barkow, Longboard manages ad inventory for thefind.com, shop.com, overstock.com, buzzillions.com and become.com.
Like a Glam Media for ecommerce, the vertical ad group has been profitable for a year now, growing from $1.3 million in revenue in its first year to $8-9 million in projected 2010 revenue. Says Engler, “When we started Longboard, our goals for the first 2 years were to execute on our model to dominate our vertical and to growth a self sustaining business. We are very proud to be in the position we are.”
Currently ranking #1 in shopping vertical audience, Longboard Media has also grown from 5 million monthly Comscore users in 2008 to more than 48 million monthly users in a span of two years, beating both Google Product Search and Yahoo Shopping by 50%. It ranks alongside Walmart.com at #6 in retail audience overall.
While self-funded, the startup also has some pretty notable advisors including former Digg Revenue officer Chas Edwards, Brightroll CEO Tod Sacredoti, Catalystsf’s John Durham and Threadsy’s Rob Goldman.
Taking advantage of this upward movement, Longboard plans to launch more products in 2011 and is focusing primarily on mobile.