OpenX Picks Ex-Yahoo Cadogan For CEO, Moving To LA
This story was written by Robert Andrews.
Open-source ad server platform OpenX, which rebranded from OpenAds in February, is moving HQ from London to Los Angeles. In the process, it's hiring Yahoo's (NSDQ: YHOO) former search, listings and display ads SVP Tim Cadogan as CEO, AllThingsD reports, confirming a tip we received.
OpenAds, which has 30 staff, got a $5 million first round investment led by Index Ventures last summer and a $15.5 million second round led by Accel in February, at which point it hired ex AOL (NYSE: TWX) CEO Jonathan Miller as chair - but was still yet to settle on a business model. Cadogan was with Yahoo for five years after coming from GoTo.com but left about six weeks ago. Skype still lists current OpenAds CEO James Bilefield as its Europe general manager, a role he had combined - but OpenX told me that was out of date and he will not be returning to Skype.
OpenX claims over 30,000 publishers in over 100 countries for its free software and fancies it can challenge larger ad nets by giving publishers more control - that may be harder than it sounds. Cadogan (via AllThingsD): "You have not really seen open-source models really applied to the ad space until nowbut there is a big business in giving publishers a really robust offering and a platform where they can also share what they build."
By Robert Andrews