OpenX growth shows open-source startups may be recession-proof

Open-source advertising platform OpenX appears to be winning large scale adoption of its ad-serving software, both the core downloadable version and the hosted product. It’s now serving around 300 billion ad impressions through its service every month. Although originally based London it has now moved its main headquarters to California with offices remaining in London and Poland.

OpenX products (OpenX Hosted and Core OpenX Ad Server) are used in more than 100 countries and are translated into twenty-five languages by community contributors, serving over 35,000 total publishers that power more than 150,000 websites.

Although this growth would appear to be counter to the overall downward cycle of the world’s economy, it’s likely related to the fact that it’s usually cheaper to run open source than proprietary solutions. What may be more interesting is the fact that although there is a trend towards performance-based ads in a downturn, this is an online advertising company focused on display.

OpenX, which used to be called Openads, raised around $20.5 million in funding from Accel Partners, Index Ventures, First Round Capital, Mangrove Capital Partners and O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures.