The Rubicon Project, a Los Angeles based display ad optimization platform, confirmed today that it has completed its acquisition of parts of the Fox Audience Network from News Corp. I outlined the main details of the deal last week. Rubicon is purchasing mostly the technology (ad server, MyAds self-service ad buying platform, targeting technology, realtime bidding algorithms) and taking on about 100 of FAN’s technology employees (after the other half of FAN’s employees, the sales team, lost their jobs last week). FAN’s third-party ad network is not part of the deal.
At the same time, the Rubicon project raised another $18 million from investors including News Corporation, Clearstone Venture Partners, IDG Ventures Asia, Mayfield Fund, and NBC Universal’s Peacock Equity Fund. So News Corp now owns a minority stake in the Rubicon Project as a result of this transfer of assets plus some cash. → Read More
News Corp is on the verge of unloading another one of its digital businesses under Fox Interactive Media, the Fox Audience Network (FAN), to Los Angeles-based ad-optimization startup The Rubicon Project. The deal has not been signed yet and may still fall apart, but the two companies are in the final stages of negotiation, according to sources with direct knowledge of the deal. (Talks have been heating up over the past month). In preparation for the sale, or continuation as a standalone business, about half of its 300 employees were let go yesterday, most of them sales people. Rubicon is more interested in the ad technology.
If the proposed deal with Rubicon goes through, it will get certain assets including FAN’s ad server technology, its self-serve banner advertising platform called MyAds, and about 100 employees to help run those parts of the business. In return, News Corp will get about 20 percent of Rubicon’s shares. (When Fox Interactive Media disposed of Rotten Tomatoes, it structured a similar asset-for-equity swap with Flixster). The fact that the ad server technology is one of the key assets here is particularly noteworthy, given that Rubicon’s public posturing in the past was that the ad server is dead. → Read More
Los Angeles-based digital advertising company The Rubicon Project this morning announced that it has acquired SiteScout, a four-year-old security technology company based in Seattle.
SiteScout essentially helps online publishers protect their Web sites from malicious advertising (malvertising), and The Rubicon Project can use their technology to ramp up the security layer of its REVV for publishers platform.
A purchase price was not disclosed. → Read More
Digital advertising company Rubicon Project has landed a pair of Internet marketing vets in an effort to broaden its management team with experienced executives.
The LA-based company has hired Ben Trenda, formerly VP of Global Partnerships at AOL, as Vice President of U.S. Demand and Eric Matza, former Vice President of Product Management at Experian, as Director of Product Marketing. → Read More
Digital advertising infrastructure company the Rubicon Project today at the PaidContent 2010 conference has outlined its corporate strategy going forward. Essentially, the company is declaring that you’ll soon be able to stick a fork in the ad server, and to underline its vision it has published a fairly interesting manifesto on its website that’s well worth a read if you have a vested interest in the Internet advertising marketplace.
The company also announced that it has tapped Allen & Company as its financial advisor to support the company’s goals, which it says will include strategic acquisitions, platform expansion and other paths to accelerated international growth. → Read More
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