Automate Ads (formerly Kuhcoon) was an American advertising technology company that offered products for running and creating

advertising campaigns An advertising campaign is a series of advertisement messages that share a single idea and theme which make up an integrated marketing communication (IMC). An IMC is a platform in which a group of people can group their ideas, beliefs, and concep ...

Google Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...

and

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin ...

. The company was founded in 2011 and was acquired by AdHawk in October 2017.

History

Kuhcoon was co-founded in 2011 by Andrew Torba and Charles Szymanski, who were

college A college ( Latin: ''collegium'') is an educational institution or a constituent part of one. A college may be a degree-awarding tertiary educational institution, a part of a collegiate or federal university, an institution offering ...

roommates at the time, in

Scranton Scranton is a city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Lackawanna County. With a population of 76,328 as of the 2020 U.S. census, Scranton is the largest city in Northeastern Pennsylvania, the Wyoming Vall ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; (Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, Ma ...

. In October 2011, Torba became

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especiall ...

of the company. In late 2014,

Y Combinator Y Combinator (YC) is an American technology startup accelerator launched in March 2005. It has been used to launch more than 3,000 companies, including Airbnb, Coinbase, Cruise, DoorDash, Dropbox, Instacart, Quora, PagerDuty, Reddit, Str ...

invested in Kuhcoon. In February 2015, the company claimed it was working with over 6,000

advertisers Advertising is the practice and techniques employed to bring attention to a product or service. Advertising aims to put a product or service in the spotlight in hopes of drawing it attention from consumers. It is typically used to promote a ...

in over 90 different countries, said they would soon launch on

Google Adwords Google Ads (formerly Google AdWords) is an online advertising platform developed by Google, where advertisers bid to display brief advertisements, service offerings, product listings, or videos to web users. It can place ads both in the result ...

, and were also planning on launching on

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

and

Pinterest Pinterest is an American image sharing and social media service designed to enable saving and discovery of information (specifically "ideas") on the internet using images, and on a smaller scale, animated GIFs and videos, in the form of pinboa ...

. Kuhcoon also claimed their focus was on serving small and medium-sized advertising businesses rather than serving big businesses. On June 25, 2015, the company renamed itself to Automate Ads. In August 2016, Torba stepped down as CEO of the company. That same month, Torba co-founded Gab, an

alt-tech Alt-tech are social media platforms and Internet service providers that have become popular among the alt-right, far-right, and others who espouse extreme or fringe opinions, in the belief that these alternatives moderate content less string ...

social networking A social network is a social structure made up of a set of social actors (such as individuals or organizations), sets of dyadic ties, and other social interactions between actors. The social network perspective provides a set of methods for a ...

service known for its

far-right Far-right politics, also referred to as the extreme right or right-wing extremism, are political beliefs and actions further to the right of the left–right political spectrum than the standard political right, particularly in terms of bein ...

user base, with Ekrem Büyükkaya. On October 18, 2017, AdHawk announced that they had acquired Automate Ads for an undisclosed amount. According to a press release from AdHawk, no employees from Automate Ads would join AdHawk in the acquisition, but the "underlying technology" from Automate Ads would still be acquired. AdHawk also agreed to consult CTO Szymanski to help integrate Automate Ads' technology into AdHawk's advertising platform. AdHawk was planning on fully integrating their platform with Automate Ads' platform in the first quarter of 2018. According to ''

The New Republic ''The New Republic'' is an American magazine of commentary on politics, contemporary culture, and the arts. Founded in 1914 by several leaders of the progressive movement, it attempted to find a balance between "a liberalism centered in hu ...

'', prior to the acquisition, Automate Ads "nearly shut down". As of August 2021, AdHawk is part of a network of websites on a "mission to transform the way

flooring Flooring is the general term for a permanent covering of a floor, or for the work of installing such a floor covering. Floor covering is a term to generically describe any finish material applied over a floor structure to provide a walking surface ...

is bought and sold."

References

{{Company-stub Online advertising Technology companies established in 2011 2011 establishments in the United States 2011 establishments in Pennsylvania 2017 mergers and acquisitions