Congrats to Rubicon!

This just released from Rubicon. Congrats to all the folks at Rubicon!

THE RUBICON PROJECT CELEBRATES MAJOR WINS IN FIRST YEAR SERVING CUSTOMERS

Highlights include optimizing 55 billion ad impressions for 1,300 publishers across 280 top ad networks

Los Angeles, California—October 8, 2008

the Rubicon Project, an advertising technology company, celebrates a momentous first year pioneering the category of Ad Network Optimization. The company optimizes website publishers’ unsold ad space across ad networks to ensure they make the most money possible, eliminates the hassles of ad network management and protects their brand when selling through these critical channels.

STATISTICS

Each quarter the company has consistently shattered its revenue, impression, reach and publisher revenue lift goals. Highlights from the first 12 months include:

• 55 billion total ad impressions optimized;
• Currently optimizing 12 billion ads monthly;
• Active customer base of 1,300 publishers;
• Healthy roster of Internet’s largest properties including 4 of 5 top newspaper publishers;
• Ties established with more than 280 top ad networks;
• Most major ad networks are working with the Rubicon Project today, including International networks in Asia, Europe, Australia and Latin America;
• Revenue lift ranging from of 30-300% for publishers;
• 250%revenue growth from Q2 to Q3.

TECHNOLOGY& CUSTOMER DEVELOPMENT:

To achieve its mission to automate the online advertising industry, the Rubicon Project set out to create a superior technology platform to optimize the relationship between publishers and ad networks. In today’s fragmented market it was a massive undertaking:

• Launched industry-first Smart Matching™ (patent pending) technology platform;
• Created Certified Ad Space™ program, ensuring safety and accuracy for agencies and advertisers when buying media through ad networks;
• Developed Brand Protection solution to address three top issues plaguing large publishers: ad quality, ad network serving speed and channel conflict.
• Channel Conflict: the Rubicon Project developed a program to alleviate the stress of channel conflict by creating qualified anonymous inventory based solely on channel, demography, geography and other premium factors without guaranteeing inventory by brand name.
• Ad Quality Protection for Publishers: Three-fold approach: proprietary technology; dedicated policing team that works with ad networks to match ads to preferred quality settings; and a dedicated ad quality protection team led by our Ad Quality Czar that diligently reviews ads.
• Ad Network Ad Serving Speed Monitoring: Slow ad serving speeds cost publishers money, which is why the Rubicon Project system monitors each network for serving speeds. When an ad network experiences slow serving times they are automatically paused until performance improves, minimizing the brand and user experience impact slow ads can have for websites.

CORPORATE MILESTONES

In addition to technology and customer growth the company also experienced many exciting corporate milestones:

• Raised $22 million in capital. In January, the Rubicon Project announced a series B round led by Mayfield Fund, a $15 million follow-on to the $6 million financing led by Clearstone Venture Partners in October 2007. Additional investors include IDG Ventures Asia, Matt Coffin, Founding CEO of LowerMyBills.com and Jarl Mohn.
• Introduced CNET Chairman Jarl Mohn to the company’s Board of Directors;
• Grew team from 8 A++ employees to 65 passionate entrepreneurs in Los Angeles,San Francisco and New York;
• Issued the industry’s first ad network optimization market reports.

the Rubicon Project have also won a number of prestigious awards:

• AlwaysOnOnMedia 100 winner, honoring the top private game-changing players in the marketing, branding, advertising, and public relations industries;
• AlwaysOn’s Global 250 winner, honoring top emerging private companies that are creating new business opportunities in the global technology industries;
• Winner of PriceWaterhouseCooper's Entretech Entrepreneurship Award;
• Finalist for three American Business Awards: Best New Company; Best New Product or Service; and Most Innovative Company;
• #24 on Fast Company’s Fast 50 Top Reader’s favorite list;
• Awarded Favorite Startup at TwiistUp, Los Angeles’ premier emerging technology event.

What's in store for the Rubicon Project in 2009?

• Primary focus on technology advancements, including:
  • Algorithms and math to further improve monetization for publishers and ad networks;
  • Global Infrastructure development;
  • Intelligent data solutions to help ad networks create more effective campaigns.
• Growth, growth, and growth:
  • International expansion;
  • Key partnerships to grow the Rubicon Project’s technology platform;
  • Strategic acquisitions.

QUOTES

Frank Addante, CEO and Founder of the Rubicon Project

"When we started this company over a year ago, many were predicting that ad networks were going to be a thing of the past. We saw ad networks as an important part of the online advertising ecosystem. They provide increased efficiency for advertisers." Said Frank Addante, CEO and Founder, "Today, ad networks are critical sales channels for websites. They are here to stay and stronger than ever. We’re here to help website publishers maximize the value of the this channel through our Ad Network Optimization service."

Jarl Mohn, Board member and investor

"I was really impressed by how much the team at the Rubicon Project has accomplished in such a short period of time. The strides that have been made toward solving such a massive industry headache are significant," said Mohn. "The combination of Frank Addante's experience building and running companies, the industry knowledge of the employees and the overwhelming interest in their service by major International brands made it an easy decision to become an investor and get involved. the Rubicon Project is the company is building the ultimate monetization technology for online advertising."

Sumant Mandal, managing director, Clearstone Venture Partners (Series A investor)

"As a VC that previously invested in prior industry game-changers like Overture and PayPal, among others, I always look for a great team, coupled with real market insight into a massive pain point to determine where to invest next. the Rubicon Project identified an industry pain point that wasn’t being addressed – how to help publishers make more money from their ad inventory without investing more resources and time. This need is even more relevant today than a year ago when the company began taking on customers. As advertising budgets come under increased scrutiny and the economic client becomes less forgiving, ensuring publishers are able to maximize potential ad inventory revenues has become a "must have" versus a "nice to have." The team at the Rubicon Project has been phenomenal to work with and have built a world-class execution engine. I look forward to seeing what they accomplish in 12 more months."

Major Newspaper Publisher

Maximizing revenue streams to support our news business is more important than ever. The Rubicon Project manages all of our network relationships and takes on the responsibility of ensuring every piece of unsold inventory has a paid advertisement in it. This allows us to focus on our direct sales efforts while they focus on working with ad networks, allocating and optimizing ad inventory and flagging potential ad quality issues. These are just a few of the functions that Rubicon performs. Their efforts have saved our team countless hours of time and frustration all while bringing us an increase in yield from new ad network relationships and allowing us to work on other vital components of our business."

Greg Liberman, President and Chief Operating Officer, Spark Networks®

Spark Networks® (AMEX: LOV) is a publicly-traded company with more than 30 targeted online singles communities - such as JDate®.com, BlackSingles.com® and ChristianMingle®.com - in our portfolio. Although the vast majority of our revenue is derived from subscription sales, advertising has become an increasingly more important component of our strategy. While our in-house ad sales team focuses on making sales and super-serving our direct advertising partners, efficiently monetizing remnant inventory for multiple properties can be a challenge. That is why we turned to the Rubicon Project. The Rubicon Project helps us manage and optimize network advertising for many of our large communities, ensuring the right network ads show in the right places at the right times."

LINKS

Corporate:
Learn more about what the Rubicon Project can do for publishers
Learn more about what the Rubicon Project can do for ad networks
Read the Rubicon Project blog
Meet the Rubicon Project team
Join the Rubicon Project Facebook group
Follow the Rubicon Project on Flickr
Go behind the scenes in the video gallery

Frank Addante, CEO:

Read Frank's blog at http://www.FounderBlog.com
Frank's LinkedIn profile
Follow Frank on Twitter

About the Rubicon Project
In 2007, the Rubicon Project started on a mission to automate the fractured $45 billion global online advertising industry. Responding to one of the largest problems plaguing website publishers today, the team pioneered the category of Ad Network Optimization (ANO) to provide publishers with a solution that makes them the most money possible by optimizing unsold ad space across ad networks, eliminating the hassles of ad network management and protecting their brands when selling through these critical channels. Using its $22 million in funding, the company is investing heavily in the development of its patent-pending Smart Matching™ technology. This unique predictive technology takes advantage of billions of pieces of proprietary market data to match every ad impression to the best money-making opportunities from ad networks.

In just one year, the company has built a healthy roster of 1300 active customers, and optimizes more than 12 billion ads each month across 280 of the top ad networks. Currently reaching more than 240 million unique internet users, the Rubicon Project is one of the largest sources of ad inventory and reach on the Internet and a critical source of intelligent ad space and targeted reach for ad networks across the globe. Based in Los Angeles, the company is backed by Mayfield Fund, Clearstone Venture Partners and IDG Ventures. Demand More from your Unsold Ad Space: www.rubiconproject.com.