nToggle

nToggle, Inc. operated in the advertising technology sector, providing a platform to optimize programmatic ad traffic for both buyers and sellers. The company was founded in 2014 by a team of ad-tech veterans: Adam Soroca as CEO, Ben Gordon as Chief Technology Officer, and Shrikanth Mysore as Chief Data Scientist. Soroca's journey into entrepreneurship began after deciding against following his father into commodities trading, instead finding his passion in building businesses and digital advertising, with formative experiences at Lycos and as Chief Product Officer at Jumptap, a mobile ad startup. This deep industry experience informed the creation of nToggle, which was conceived to solve the overwhelming complexity and infrastructure costs associated with the surge in real-time bidding (RTB) requests.

The company’s core business was centered on its algorithm-driven software platform that acted as an intelligent filter for the programmatic bid stream. For clients, primarily demand-side platforms (DSPs), nToggle's technology analyzed billions of daily bid requests to filter out duplicates and irrelevant inventory. This "traffic shaping" service provided significant benefits, most notably reducing the massive infrastructure costs for DSPs by compressing inbound queries per second by as much as 80%. By receiving a more refined, relevant stream of ad opportunities, buyers could bid more effectively and increase their win rates. The business model likely involved charging clients for the efficiency and cost-savings gains provided by its traffic optimization service.

The company’s primary achievement was its acquisition by Rubicon Project (now Magnite) on July 14, 2017, for a cash consideration of $38.5 million. This event marked a successful exit for the founders and investors, which included Bessemer Venture Partners and Sigma Prime Ventures. The acquisition was a strategic move by Rubicon Project to bolster its exchange, particularly to address the challenges posed by header bidding, and to integrate nToggle's machine learning technology to give ad buyers better control and more confidence in their bidding. At the time of the acquisition, the entire nToggle team of 21 employees joined Rubicon Project to continue developing and scaling the technology.

Keywords: programmatic advertising, ad tech, real-time bidding, traffic shaping, demand-side platform, bid stream optimization, ad exchange, header bidding, Adam Soroca, Rubicon Project, Magnite, ad inventory, data science, machine learning, cost per second, bid request optimization, ad efficiency, digital media buying, Jumptap, Ben Gordon, Shrikanth Mysore