TubeMogul is an enterprise software company for brand advertising. TubeMogul is headquartered in

Emeryville, California Emeryville is a city located in northwest Alameda County, California, in the United States. It lies in a corridor between the cities of Berkeley, California, Berkeley and Oakland, California, Oakland, with a border on the shore of San Francisc ...

and has global offices located in Chengdu (China), Chicago, Detroit, Kyiv, New York, London, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Paris, São Paulo, Singapore, Shanghai, Sydney, Toronto, and Tokyo. In November 2016, Adobe Systems Incorporated announced an agreement to acquire TubeMogul.

Company history

2007–2009

TubeMogul was founded by Brett Wilson and John Hughes while enrolled as MBA students at the University of California Berkeley's

Haas School of Business The Walter A. Haas School of Business (branded as Berkeley Haas) is the business school of the University of California, Berkeley, a Public university, public research university in Berkeley, California. It was the first business school at a pub ...

. In 2007, the TubeMogul team led by Wilson and Hughes won the Haas Business Plan Competition, which provided seed money enabling the development and launch of the product. In its original conception, TubeMogul was a

cross-platform Within computing, cross-platform software (also called multi-platform software, platform-agnostic software, or platform-independent software) is computer software that is designed to work in several Computing platform, computing platforms. Some ...

online

video analytics Video content analysis or video content analytics (VCA), also known as video analysis or video analytics (VA), is the capability of automatically analyzing video to detect and determine temporal and spatial events. This technical capability is used ...

tool in 2007. Video producers uploaded content through TubeMogul, which would then distribute and track performance across video sharing sites.

2010–2013

In 2010, TubeMogul launched Playtime, an online video

ad network Advertising is the practice and techniques employed to bring attention to a product or service. Advertising aims to present a product or service in terms of utility, advantages, and qualities of interest to consumers. It is typically use ...

, to help advertisers deliver ads to their target audience. Playtime differentiated itself from other online ad networks with its self-service features as well as the level of transparency it provided. In 2011, TubeMogul combined the Playtime ad network with the video syndication platform to become a

demand-side platform A demand-side platform (DSP) is a concept that combines various software for advertisers (or advertising agencies) to automate the process of buying and selling ad impressions in real time. This platform provides digital advertising inventory wi ...

(DSP) for brand advertisers. TubeMogul's DSP aggregates multiple inventory sources, including advertising exchanges, supply-side platforms, advertising networks as well as direct relationships with premium publishers, local and national broadcasters, cable networks and multichannel video programming distributors. In 2012, TubeMogul introduced its BrandSafe technology, which ensured that advertisements did not appear alongside objectionable content or run in ineffectively-small video players. In 2013, TubeMogul launched BrandPoint, which allows marketers to execute digital video buys on a

gross rating point In advertising, a gross rating point (GRP) measures the size of an audience that an advertisement impacts. GRPs help answer ''how often'' "must someone see it before they can readily recall it" and "how many times" does it take before the desired o ...

(GRP) basis, traditionally used by TV advertisers to measure a campaign's effectiveness. In March 2016, TubeMogul partnered with Facebook to reach TV audiences via Nielsen data.

2014

TubeMogul became a publicly traded company on July 18, 2014, and is listed with the

NASDAQ Global Select Market The Nasdaq Stock Market (; National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations) is an American stock exchange based in New York City. It is the most active stock trading venue in the U.S. by volume, and ranked second on the list ...

using the ticker symbol "TUBE" (See ). In December 2014, TubeMogul released PTV, a Programmatic TV software solution that allows advertisers to plan and execute data-driven local, national, addressable and VOD television media buys.

2015–present

Also in 2015, TubeMogul participated in a third-party assessment of Video Demand Side Platforms conducted by

Forrester Research Forrester Research, Inc. is a research and advisory firm. Forrester serves clients in North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific. The firm is headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Cambridge, MA with global offices in Amsterdam, London, New D ...

. In 2016, TubeMogul announced partnerships and integrations with the social media platforms Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and SnapChat. TubeMogul received the distinction of being the first video advertising platform awarded a Partner Marketing badge from Facebook and was one of eight advertising partners chosen by Snapchat in their initial monetization release strategy.

Financing

TubeMogul received its initial funding after winning the Lester Center's Business Plan Competition while co-founders John Hughes and Brett Wilson were studying at

UC Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after the Anglo-Irish philosopher George Berkele ...

’s

in 2007. The company received seed funding from NetService Ventures later that same year. In February 2008, TubeMogul raised $3 million in

Series A funding A series A is the name typically given to a company's first significant round of venture capital financing. It can be followed by the word round, investment or financing. The name refers to the class of preferred stock sold to investors in excha ...

led by Trinity Ventures. In October 2008, they acquired Illuminex, a video analytics company founded by Jason Lopatecki and Adam Rose, for an undisclosed amount. They raised a combined $10 million in their

Series B A venture round is a type of funding round used for venture capital financing, by which startup companies obtain investment, generally from venture capitalists and other institutional investors. The availability of venture funding is among the ...

round in March 2009, led by

Foundation Capital Foundation Capital is a venture capital firm located in Silicon Valley. The firm was founded in 1995, and in 2012 managed more than $2.4 billion in investment capital. As of 2023, the firm has over $6 billion in assets under management. Histor ...

. In December 2012 the company raised $28 million in the first tranche of its Series C, led by Northgate Capital. The second tranche of the Series C was led by SingTel Innov8, corporate venture capital arm of the SingTel Group, along with Cross Creek Capital, for $10 million in May 2013.

IPO

Brett Wilson Rings Nasdaq Opening Bell 7

TubeMogul filed its S-1 form with the SEC on March 26, 2014. On July 18, 2014 TubeMogul became a publicly traded company. They made 6.3 million shares available to investors at $7 per share to raise a total of $43.8 million in their initial offering.

Adobe acquisition

In November 2016, Adobe Systems Incorporated announced an agreement to acquire TubeMogul for $14 per share, or approximately $540 million, in cash. The deal is expected to close in Adobe's first quarter of 2017.

Industry initiatives

Non-Human Traffic Credit Program

In February 2016, TubeMogul announced the development of a new anti-ad fraud initiative called the Non-Human Traffic Credit Program. Effective April 2016, the company will automatically refund clients whose ads were served to non-human traffic, also known as bots. TubeMogul partnered with ad fraud detection company White Ops, which will apply its verification technology across every video ad bought through TubeMogul's Open RTB platform. The service is available to all clients who have a master service agreement with TubeMogul.

Independence Matters

In March 2016, TubeMogul launched an advertising campaign alleging Google's dual position as both media owner as well as buying platform creates inherent conflicts of interests for marketers. TubeMogul claims that "Google has made a conscious decision to wall itself off from the rest of the industry." The campaign hints at Google's move to restrict third-party companies from buying YouTube ads via the DoubleClick Ad Exchange.

Open Video Viewability (OpenVV)

In May 2013, TubeMogul and several other advertising technology vendors formed the Open Video View (OpenVV) consortium to help facilitate the adoption of a viewability standard for online video advertising. OpenVV is an

open-source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...

code that provides marketers verification that their ad was actually seen by human eyes and reasons for non-viewability. TubeMogul founded the initiative along with video technology vendors BrightRoll,

Innovid Innovid is an American online advertising technology company that offers services used by advertisers and publishers for the distribution and management of digital ads. Originally launched as a video marketing platform, the company expanded its o ...

, SpotXChange, and LiveRail; current members include Nielsen,

comScore Comscore, Inc. is an American-based global media measurement and analytics company providing marketing data and analytics to enterprises, advertising agencies, brand marketers, and publishers. History Comscore was founded in July 1999 in Resto ...

TrustE TrustArc Inc. (formerly TRUSTe) is a privacy compliance technology company based in Walnut Creek, California. The company provides software and services to help corporations update their privacy management processes so they comply with government ...

, and VivaKi. In June 2015, the IAB Tech Lab took over management of the OpenVV initiative as they continued to ramp up efforts in creating a common, scalable and interoperable technical solution to effectively measure viewability for video. The transfer of management for OpenVV marked the first industry initiative to be on-boarded into the IAB Tech Lab, a nonprofit research and development organization charged with producing and helping companies implement global industry technical standards and solutions.

Fraud/Fake Pre-Roll

In 2012, TubeMogul launched fakepreroll.com to raise awareness about video ads that were shown in inventory normally reserved for display advertisements, oftentimes without the marketer's knowledge. The site was taken down after several companies sent TubeMogul cease-and-desist orders.

Botnet detection

In 2014, TubeMogul reported the existence of three

botnets A botnet is a group of Internet-connected devices, each of which runs one or more bots. Botnets can be used to perform distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, steal data, send spam, and allow the attacker to access the device and its conne ...

, responsible for defrauding advertisers for a potential $10 million each month.

IPG internship

In March 2014, IPG Mediabrands and TubeMogul announced the "Ad-Tech Apprenticeship," a one-year intensive training program designed to give college graduates a holistic view of the digital advertising industry.

Awards

# 2009 South by Southwest (

SXSW South by Southwest (SXSW) is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and Convention (meeting), conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, Texas. It began in 1987 and has conti ...

) Best Online Video-Related Technology Winner # 2009 AlwaysOn OnMedia 100 Award Winner # 2012 AlwaysOn Global 250 Winner # 2013 Inc. Top 100 Advertising and Marketing Companies #29 # 2013 Inc. Hire Power Award Top 10 Advertising and Marketing Companies #9 # 2013 Lead 411 Tech200 #14 # 2013

Deloitte Deloitte is a multinational professional services network based in London, United Kingdom. It is the largest professional services network in the world by revenue and number of employees, and is one of the Big Four accounting firms, along wi ...

Fast 500 #35 # 2013 iMedia Connection ASPY Awards – Winner Best Customer Service Award # 2014 San Francisco Business Times Best Places to Work #35 # 2014 The Drum Digital Trading Awards – Winner Advertiser's Choice of Ad technology # 2014 AIMA Awards – Winner Outstanding Technical Achievement for Viewability Reporting and Audit # 2015

Glassdoor Glassdoor is an American website where current and former employees anonymously review companies, operated by the company of the same name. In 2018, the company was acquired by the Japanese company Recruit Holdings (owner of Indeed) for US$1. ...

– Winner "Best Places to Work" People's Choice Awards, TubeMogul was ranked 5th for companies with less than 1,000 employees. # 2015 iMedia ASPY Awards – Best Video Partner # 2015 The Drum Digital Trading Awards – Winner Most Effective Programmatic Media Partnership. # 2016 iMedia ASPY Awards – Best Video Partner # 2016 The Drum Digital Trading Awards – Winner Most Effective Programmatic Media Partnership. # 2016 Fortune Great Places to Work – Winner "Top 100 Places to Work for Millennials" # 2016 Digiday Video Awards – Winner Best Video Advertising Partners.

Open source contributions

TubeMogul is both a consumer of and contributor to free and open source software. TubeMogul's contributions include a list of

Puppet A puppet is an object, often resembling a human, animal or Legendary creature, mythical figure, that is animated or manipulated by a person called a puppeteer. Puppetry is an ancient form of theatre which dates back to the 5th century BC in anci ...

Modules released on the Puppet Forge, and OpenVV. TubeMogul also contributes to an Engineering Blog, other open source projects on GitHub, meetup, and public talk at conferences like

Velocity Velocity is a measurement of speed in a certain direction of motion. It is a fundamental concept in kinematics, the branch of classical mechanics that describes the motion of physical objects. Velocity is a vector (geometry), vector Physical q ...

, USENIX LISA, SRECon, SuiteWorld, Puppet Camp,

OpenStack OpenStack is a free, open standard cloud computing platform. It is mostly deployed as infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) in both public and private clouds where virtual servers and other resources are made available to users. The software pla ...

Summit,

Nagios Nagios is an event monitoring system that offers monitoring and alerting services for servers, switches, applications and services. It alerts users when things go wrong and alerts them a second time when the problem has been resolved. Ethan ...

World. TubeMogul has adopted successfully a private cloud strategy while going through hyper-growth and leveraging the open source project

. The solution is now providing the base of the

Adobe Adobe (from arabic: الطوب Attub ; ) is a building material made from earth and organic materials. is Spanish for mudbrick. In some English-speaking regions of Spanish heritage, such as the Southwestern United States, the term is use ...

Advertising Cloud.

References

{{Adobe Inc. 2007 establishments in California Online advertising Big data companies American companies established in 2007 Software companies established in 2007 Software companies based in California Companies based in Emeryville, California Companies formerly listed on the Nasdaq 2014 initial public offerings 2017 mergers and acquisitions Defunct software companies of the United States Adobe Inc.