The Rubicon Project is a Los Angeles, California based advertising-optimization start-up company co-founded by Frank Addante, Craig Roah, Duc Chau, and Julie Mattern. The company has just raised a $9 million Series C round of funding, putting them at a total of $43 million. The Series C investors include Peacock Equity, Clearstone Venture Partners, and Mayfield Fund.
Rubicon Project has about 1,300 clients which include Gannett, Salon, Washington Post, and Newsweek. They optimize over 15 billion ads per month across 300 advertising networks. Rubicon monetizes ad space that has been unsold by ad networks.
Earlier this month Rubicon Project acquired Others Online. The Others Online CEO and founder Jordan Mitchell became the VP of Data Intelligence at Rubicon as a result of the acquisition.
Greystripe is a mobile advertising company that has recently raised $2 million from NBC’s Peacock Equity Fund. Peacock Equity Fund is a joint venture between GE and NBC Universal. This is Greystripe’s Series C round of funding. Greystripe now has about $17.6 in total venture funding.
Greystripe previously raised funding from Incubic Venture Capital, Steamboat Ventures, and Monitor Ventures. Greystripe will be powering the advertising on the applications for several media companies including Sci-Fi Channel, Bravo, and MSNBC.
BlogHer is a community for women who blog. Last July BlogHer raised $5 million in funding as part of a Series B round. Now the company has raised an additional $7 million round of funding as part of their Series C. This brings the company to a total investment of $15.5 million.
The participants of the new round of funding includes previous investors Venrock Capital and Peacock Equity. BlogHer gained attention for hosting First Lady Michelle Obama’s blog. BlogHer has about 2,500 bloggers in their network. There are about 30 direct employees of the company. BlogHer was started in 2005 by Lisa Stone, Elisa Camahort Page and Jory Des Jardins. Stone currently serves as the CEO.
“4INFO clearly fits Peacock Equity’s strategic funding objectives: it has a market-leading position within a high-growth sector and it has an exiting community of users accustomed to receiving customized, ad-supported content in text messages,â€
-Peacock Equity’s Tom Byrne
Peacock Equity, created by GE Commercia Finance, GE Media Communications & Entertainment and NBC Universal is a $250 million global fund that invests in media and tech companies. The company recently announced that NBC Universal will take a stake in 4INFO, a San Mateo, Calif.-based company that focuses on SMS advertising. 4INFO gives access to real-time sports, business, entertainment, travel, and local information. 4INFO also provides celebrity, weather, horoscopes, stock quotes, craigslist.com listings, and health tips. The investment made by Peacock will be used to help 4INFO build a solid ad platform. 4INFO will also become NBC’s preferred mobile ad provider.
“4INFO clearly fits Peacock Equity’s strategic funding objectives: it has a market-leading position within a high-growth sector and it has an exiting community of users accustomed to receiving customized, ad-supported content in text messages,†stated Peacock Equity’s Tom Byrne. “Mobile advertising will be a multi-billion dollar industry in the next few years as more progressive content providers and advertisers like NBC Universal realize its potential to engage audiences with targeted, measurable messages.”
Other investors in 4INFO include Draper Fisher Jurvetson, U.S. Venture Partners, and Gannett. 4INFO’s blog is available at: http://4info.typepad.com/blog/.
