What is Rubicon Project? Rubicon Project Review

Company Introduction

Rubicon Project was founded in 2007 by Frank Addante, Craig Roah, Duc Chau and Julie Mattern, who had previously worked together on online ad network L90.

Headquartered in Los Angeles, California, USA, with 409 full-time employees, together with its subsidiaries, it provides technology solutions in the United States and internationally for buyers and sellers to automatically buy and sell digital advertising online.

Business Introduction

Rubicon Project operates an automated digital ad exchange that allows clients to sell and buy ads.

Its Advertising Automation Cloud is a scalable, high-end software platform dedicated to optimizing the main market for real-time transactions of digital advertising between buyers and sellers. Through its algorithm-based high-speed, high-intensity data analysis solutions, the solution transforms the cumbersome and complex process of digital advertising buying and selling into a seamless automated process, optimizing results for buyers and sellers. Buyers of digital advertising use its platform to win 96% of Internet users in the United States, and have more than 550 million Internet users worldwide on some of the world's leading websites and applications. Sellers of digital advertising use its platform to maximize their advertising revenue, reduce costs, protect their brands and user experience. Since its inception, it has gained buyers in the global market and represented more than 100,000 brands.

Financing

As of April 2009, the company has raised $33 million in venture capital led by Clearstone Venture Partners, IDG Ventures Asia, and Mayfield Fund. The company has also received $8 million in venture debt from Silicon Valley Bank.

Rubicon Project has raised $51 million in funding from major investors including Mayfield Fund, Clearstone Venture Partners, Comcast Ventures, IDG Ventures and News Corporation.

Development History

Rubicon Project, Inc. was incorporated in Delaware in 2007.

In September 2009, Rubicon Project acquired OthersOnline, a Seattle-based audience profiling technology company.

In May 2010, Rubicon Project acquired Seattle-based malware detection company Site Scout.

In October 2010, Rubicon Project acquired Fox Audience Network, a subsidiary of News Corporation. It also received $18 million in additional funding led by Peacock Equity, the venture capital arm of NBC Universal (a subsidiary of Comcast).

In May 2012, the company acquired mobile technology company Mobsmith.

According to rankings provided by ComScore, in August 2012, the company was ranked the number one online advertising company in terms of reach, with 96.2% audience share. This put Rubicon ahead of Google for the first time, and also ahead of other competitors such as AOL and AT&T.

In 2013, Rubicon Project had total revenue of $83.8 million, a net loss of $9.2 million, and total marketing revenue increased 26% to $25.8 million.

In February 2014, Rubicon Project filed for an initial public offering (IPO) and went public in April 2014 at over $20 per share. The stock fell back to around $16 per share later that month.

In March 2014, Rubicon Project was ranked second among the top Ad Exchange entities by comScore.

On July 20, 2016, Spotify announced a partnership with the online advertising platform Rubicon Project to enable advertisers to place more targeted advertisements on a real-time bidding platform by providing information such as users' gender, age, region, song lists, and listening habits.

In February 2017, Rubicon Project fired its president and several other executives.

On March 14, 2017, Frank Addante, CEO and founder of Rubicon Project, resigned from his position and took over as president. The company announced that Michael Barrett, formerly CEO of mobile advertising marketplace Millennial Media and chief revenue officer of Yahoo, would serve as the new CEO.

litigation

In 2018, the Guardian sued Rubicon Project over an ad tech dispute, claiming that the Guardian lost significant revenue from advertisers because of the way Rubicon Project’s ad tech platform operated.