There’s no doubt about it: Facebook is the 2007 company of the year (vote for your pick). See our previous picks here.
But, when it comes to 2007’s story lines, the top one will be all about M&A in general, and M&A in ad networks in particular:
- MSFT buys aQuantive for $6B
- Yahoo! buys Right Media for $725M (paid $45M for 20%, then $680M for 80%, ultimately valuing RightMedia at a most impressive $850M at its exit)
- Yahoo! buys Blue Lithium for $300M
- WPP buys 24/7 Realmedia for $680M
- Google buys Doubleclick for $3.1B
- AOL buys Tacoda for $275M
This week we heard that Specific Media raised $100M on a $200M pre-money valuation, for a $300M post-money valuation, pretty much what Blue Lithium got acquired for from Yahoo!
In this post, I won’t comment on valuations and what not, we’ve done that before. What I want to comment on is the fact that apart from 24/7 RealMedia, Doubleclick and aQuantive, Specific Media, Blue Lithium and Right Media are all relatively new, or second generation ad networks that launched or scaled after the bubble blew up (Specific Media’s precurson, AdvertisementBanners.com dates back to 1999 and they were a major player in the pop up and pop under space but have evolved into a major player in premium publishers who have excess inventory and need something different). The company’s come a long way:
The Irvine-based startup has come a long way in the eight years since its chief executive, Tim Vanderhook, decided to go into business with his two older brothers, Chris and Russell. At the time, Tim Vanderhook was just 19 years old.
I worked with all of these companies when I was VP of Ad Sales for a mid-sized publisher and trust me, then Right Media, Tribal Fusion or Specific Media were trying to carve market share after the bubble burst, people thought they were crazy. I recall exchanging emails with the Vanderhook brothers and it’s nice to see them evolve into what they are today:
Since then, Specific Media has built one of the Internet’s largest ad-targeting systems. The network reaches a combined U.S. audience of about 130 million, spanning hundreds of Web sites, including those of ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, ESPN and Major League Baseball.
Specific Media hopes to become even bigger by using the Francisco Partners cash to make acquisitions as it battles Google Inc., Yahoo Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Time Warner Inc.’s AOL.
It was obvious that over time online media would only come back, bigger and better, but at the time, I am sure everyone thought the founders were nuts.
That’s what it’s all about to be an entrepreneur: going against the grain and finding an opportunity when others only see threats…
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