I've been a big fan of Adify. To the point where I think Russ Fradin, Adify's CEO, was starting to wonder if I was a bit of a stalker. Adify is an enabler of online advertising networks. What I've liked about the company is that they bring a new level of efficiency to the online ad market - in that they better connect advertisers with the specific publishers (and thereby audiences) they want to reach. They enable anyone to be an ad network - from one-man operations to major media companies. It's very clever.
I also like it when companies are just the right amount ahead of the curve to hit the market at just the right time - which I think Adify nailed. I can just see the pitch from a couple years ago - "you know - there's going to be, like, a lot of small ad networks - and maybe even a few big independent ones - we could power them..."
In fact my next column was going to be on Adify - I just hadn't gotten around to writing it yet - and now I probably wont given that they're going to be part of public company and I don't cover publics.
Adify was acquired today by Cox for a reported $300 million.
Here are a few other coverage points on Adify.
A panel I moderated with Russ Fradin.
We even got them on VatorBox:
Congrats to Russ and my good friend Brian Ascher from Venrock on a great company, prescient investment and successful exit.