Rubicon Project Files For $100 Million IPO - Here's A Basic Guide To Its Finances

Rubicon Project, the giant ad serving company, has filed its S-1 papers with the SEC prior to launching an IPO. The move has been expected since at least 2012, when Addante was spotted carrying a pitch deck around town with investment bank logos on it.

The disclosure solves a mystery in the adtech world: Just how big is Rubicon, which is known to be one of the bigger players?

The answer: quite big. The company handles $1.2 billion in online advertising every year, the S-1 says, and books $20 million per quarter in revenue for doing so. It has $21 million in cash on its balance sheet, and 315 employees.

AdExchanger says Rubicon CEO Frank Addante is seeking to raise $100 million from the offering.

Interestingly, Rubicon has fewer employees than AppNexus, the other adtech giant that is also suspected to be an IPO candidate. AppeNexus has 500 or more workers.

Here's a breakdown of the most important bits from the Rubicon accounts:

Revenue: Rubicon made $56 million in sales in the most recent 9 months, with a loss of $12.3 million mainly on sales and marketing expenses. Rubicon is currently booking revenue at a rate of about $20 million per quarter.

Note that Rubicon's losses on the bottom line can easily be reversed given its revenue growth rate.

Rubicon handles $1.2 billion in media buying every year:

Here is management's compensation. If you think Addante is underpaid in comparison to his colleagues, wait until you see the list of major stock holders:

Addante owns 10% of the entire company. There are 52,577,381 shares outstanding: