Ad technology firm the Rubicon Project has acquired Fox Audience Network (FAN), an advertising technology platforms, to expand its team and continue driving rapid revenue growth.
The acquisition accelerates the Rubicon Project’s plan to deliver premium Web publishers the most complete, end-to-end display advertising platform.
As part of the deal, News Corporation will receive a non-controlling minority equity stake in the new combined entity.
Separately, the Rubicon Project also announced an $18 million round of funding, bringing total financial investments to $60 million.
The current financing round included funding from News Corporation, Clearstone Venture Partners, IDG Ventures Asia, Mayfield Fund, NBC Universal’s Peacock Equity Fund and Jarl Mohn.
The Rubicon Project reached profitability in October 2010, ahead of plan and excluding any revenue from the FAN acquisition, it will generate more than $100 million in revenue in 2010.
“There is great synergy across the technology and market vision of the two companies and teams. Backed by News Corporation’s support, FAN’s talented engineering team has developed unique, industry-leading display advertising technologies,” said Frank Addante, CEO and Founder of the Rubicon Project.
“the Rubicon Project’s REVV platform is the number one yield optimization platform in the industry, powering more than 60 billion ad transactions each month and will process 500 billion real-time bidding (RTB) transactions in Q4. REVV fuels the industry’s largest display advertising marketplace, where 600+ ad networks, exchanges and DSPs from around the world reach 550+ million unique users.
“The addition of FAN’s technology assets positions us to provide a complete platform 18-24 months ahead of schedule. Combining the technology with our market share and financial strength – we are now have everything we need to successfully execute our vision.”
As part of the acquisition, more than 100 FAN employees will be joining the Rubicon Project team – a majority in engineering and product. the Rubicon Project does not sell its technology to advertisers; therefore it did not acquire FAN’s direct ad sales team.
Key assets and highlights of the FAN transaction include:
• MyAds self-service ad buying platform
• FAN’s SDC publisher ad server
• Audience hypertargeting and insights technology
• Real-time bidding algorithms
• 100+ FAN technology employees
Former CTO and EVP of Product, Technology and Operations at FAN, John Carnahan, joins the Rubicon Project’s leadership team as CTO. Carnahan will be responsible for overseeing all product development activities, and formulating long-term vision and strategy for the REVV platform. Prior to FAN, Carnahan was Lead Developer at Yahoo! Research.
www.rubiconproject.com