Amid an upcoming recession, Eyeblaster, an Israeli company competing with Google and Microsoft on online campaign management solutions, has registered with the SEC for public trading on Nasdaq today. The IPO is valued around $115 million according to CNN. Shares will be listed under the ticker symbol “EYEB.” Eyeblaster said it will use the proceeds to cover operation costs and for future acquisitions.
Eyeblaster is an independent provider of online campaign management solutions and services to both advertising agencies and individual advertisers. The company targets online, mobile and in-game advertising using rich media ad formats. Eyeblaster was also one of the first avertising companies to tackle video monetization, though its level of success is unclear.
According to 24/7 Wall Street:
Eyeblaster listed nearly 7,000 brand advertisers using roughly 2,500 media agencies and creative shops across over 2,500 web publishers in more than 40 countries globally. The growth has been from a customer base of 245 in 2002 to 979 in 2007. Revenues for 2007 were $44.7 million, up from $27.7 million in 2006.
The IPO was led by Lehman Brothers and Deutsche Bank Securities, who acted as joint bookrunners. UBS Securities and Pacific Crest Securities served as co-managers in the deal. In terms of funding, Eyeblaster has raised $40 million in three rounds (according to Globes). In early 2004, Insight Venture Partners invested $8 million into the company . The additional $30 million were added in March of 2007 by several angels (including Jonathan Colver and Eli Barkat of B.R.M) and private equity funds.
Founded in 1999, Eyeblaster has 221 employees in 23 countries. The company is headquartered in New York and while the research and development center is in Ra’anana, Israel. CEO Gal Trifon is one of the four original founders. This is the first Israeli IPO in Nasdaq in a long time, and it’s also a corageous one, if you consider Eyblaster’s competition: Google/Double Click and Microsoft, to name a couple.
I'm a former general partner at google ventures, head of Google for Entrepreneurs in Europe and founding head of Campus London, Google's first physical hub for startups.
I'm also the founder of Techbikers, a non-profit bringing together the startup ecosystem on cycling challenges in support of Room to Read. Since inception in 2012 we've built 11 schools and 50 libraries in the developing world.
