Rubicon Gets $13M to Buy Struggling Startups

As the newspaper funeral dirge trudges on, online advertising continues to grow (yes, grow ). The frustration of not being able to effectively tap the $65 billion online ad market has Rupert Murdoch and the Associated Press at fever-pitch shrillness levels. That may be one reason the Rubicon Project manage to close a $13 million follow-on B-round this week. The ad-network optimization company helps online publishers make money on their unsold ad space by finding the best ad from among virtually all of the 400+ online ad networks in existence to serve the right viewer at the right time. In a Skype interview Friday, CEO Frank Addante said he’ll use the money to buy up data optimization technology that might otherwise be doomed for the VC garbage heap. With roughly the same number of transactions per month as Nasdaq, and an online platform that is the third largest after Google and Yahoo according to Quantcast,, Rubicon’s appetite for efficiency is growing. The round includes $8M in venture debt from Silicon Valley Bank—a move Addante said was made possible by the company’s robust cash flow. Asked what advice he’d give entrepreneurs struggling to stay afloat, the 33 year-old serial entrepreneur said, “There’s a big difference between aspirin and vitamin… You’ve got to make sure that you’re solving a real pain for your customers and prove to them on a very measurable basis that you can actually solve that pain. Now is not really the time for vitamins.” Rubicon should be good for a while--Media could use some aspirin right about now.

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Blip | April 13, 2009

Tags:. .rubicon. .aspirin. .afloat. .dirge. .robust