Invite Media

Invite Media emerged in April 2007, founded by University of Pennsylvania students Nat Turner, Zach Weinberg, Scott Becker, and Michael Provenzano. The founders, who met in an entrepreneurship club, initially explored several ideas, including a video ad network, before pivoting to address the complexities they observed in the online advertising industry. Turner and Weinberg had previously started a food ordering website called Eatnow.com and gained relevant industry insight during internships.

The company developed Bid Manager, a demand-side platform (DSP) that provided a centralized interface for advertisers and agencies to purchase and optimize online display media across multiple ad exchanges in real-time. This platform enabled clients such as ad agencies, trading desks, and media buying firms to manage campaigns, apply data from various sources, and use real-time bidding to target specific audiences efficiently across exchanges like DoubleClick, Yahoo, and Microsoft's AdECN. The business model centered on providing this technology to buyers, streamlining their workflow and offering transparent control over campaign performance and costs.

A significant milestone for Invite Media was its acquisition by Google in June 2010 for a reported $81 million. Following the acquisition, Invite Media's technology became a core component of Google's display advertising services and was eventually integrated into and rebranded as DoubleClick Bid Manager, which later evolved into Google's Display & Video 360 (DV360). The founders, particularly Turner and Weinberg, went on to achieve further entrepreneurial success, co-founding Flatiron Health, a healthcare technology company that was later acquired by Roche for nearly $2 billion.

Keywords: demand-side platform, DSP, ad tech, real-time bidding, RTB, display advertising, media buying, online advertising, ad exchange, programmatic buying, Bid Manager, DoubleClick, ad optimization, campaign management, Nat Turner, Zach Weinberg, Google acquisition, ad targeting, digital media buying, media trading