Pud gets $4M from Sequoia for AdBrite!

I often start my day by reading a few newsletters, a couple of on-line journals and the latest posts of  "must read" blogs. VentureWire is one of these newsletters, listing the latest VC financing, M&A, and senior management appointments. Whilst the professional newsletter requires a subscription, VentureWire Alert provides the headlines for free.

One headline caught my attention (polite way of saying it) this morning: F***edCompany Founder Gets Sequoia's Backing For AdBrite. I stopped my browsing to read in detail this witty article that was also printed in the Wall Street Journal (also requiring a sub - via PaidContent.org).

For me Pud, the self-inflicted nickname of Philip J Kaplan, was the editor/animator and webmaster of F...dCompany.com who made (generally) hilarious descriptions of dot-com's troubles, borderline narratives about his relations (or lack thereof) with the opposite sex, and a tendency of doing quite a lot of things without his pants on (in English, dans le texte).

During the dot-com explosion, we - and a lot of other VCs - were monitoring FC to check whether any news related to our companies or their competitors were popping up. And more than once, what had appeared on FC was discussed during board meetings of these companies. And more than once, FC access got banned or monitored in these companies, just to figure out who was leaking information and official memos. Good old days... At that time, when we were busy figuring out what to do with those failing investments, FC was certainly a "tool of the trade", and for some a bedtable book.

In any case, having "Philippe Kaplan", "F...edCompany.com", "gets", "Sequoia Capital financing" used in the same sentence was surprising enough to warrant a detailed read of the article. Adbrite, which is the new name of MarketBanker - the company that Pud started to sell his ad brokering technology, is offering a service "competing" against Yahoo and Google, with a couple of interesting twists: advertisers are charged a flat fee (and not on a per-click basis) and web sites can review/veto ads before they are displayed. Even though revenues are still limited ($1M over the past 6 months reportedly), this is a company that is worth watching, and a service worth trying I'm told. Sequoia has already backed (and made $B on) both Yahoo and Google, two Internet advertising giants. And I knew from a discussion with Mark Kvamme, the Partner who did the investment, that they were still keen on the sector given the rapid growth it has enjoyed.

So, when will we see Pud on the cover of magazines as the next billionaire to be ? Let's hope for him that it will happen some day.

Rock'on Pud!

PS: One thing though: I would have *paid* to attend Pud's presentation to the Partners meeting. Can we safely assume he was wearing his pants that day :-) ?

Update: I see in my referral logs that many people want to find out if AdBrite is hiring. Yes, it is: here is the Linkedin Jobs ad.

Comments

[Jeremy C. Wright]

AdBrite's one of a handful of advertising technologies bloggers take seriously. AdSense revenues are down and so people are looking for something more reliable. AdBrite's "Marketplace" type of idea works well.

[jeff]

I like this idea better than AdSense and it's been quite effective so far for my web properties.

[Jimmy Carlilse]

AdBrite is a complete turkey. Pud padded his numbers by using Spamford Wallace's Trojan to zombie every PC that visited FC to click target MarketBanker sites (The original AdBrite). It will be funny when Sequioa realizes they have been totally hosed and they sure the ever living @#$# out of pud. By the way, AdBrite is the THIRD kick at this can. HTTPAds and MarketBanker were his first two and they failed miserably. He hasn't changed anything but the name.

Oh well, it's only money.

[FraudAlert]

Pud is inflating the board hits on fc.com with paid trolls.

[PortScanner]

Prepare to be repeatedly portscanned whenever you visit one of Kaplan's sites.

[all3]

Pud pays people to post on the bbs.

[workathome]

http://img11.exs.cx/img11/5486/clistad9yn.jpg

Says it all.