Congratulating BrightRoll

We are thrilled to congratulate Tod Sacerdoti and the entire BrightRoll team on their announced acquisition by Yahoo!. This is a wonderful outcome for all parties, and it has been an honor to be a part of this incredible team.

True was the first investor in BrightRoll, investing in Tod and Dru Nelson’s idea at inception, in August 2006. Since that time, we have remained the largest investor in the company.

Over the past eight years, BrightRoll has become the industry’s leading programmatic video advertising platform, but behind the many accolades for the company’s industry leadership is an incredible corporate culture, created and fostered by the outstanding leadership of Tod, Ron Will, Bruce Falck, Chris Amen-Kroeger, Charlie Wittingham, Beth Steinberg, Tim Avila and Monique Ho, to name just a few. An outstanding board contributed to BrightRoll’s success, including Evangelos Simoudis of Trident Capital, Rob Theis of Scale Venture Partners, Dave Welch from Adams Street, and independents Auren Hoffman and Mark Vranesh. We had world-class legal counsel from Bob Gunderson and his team. This board was one of the most effective on which I have served, and it has been a personal privilege to work with these outstanding people over these many years. The success of this team is much deserved.

We are hugely grateful for BrightRoll’s many contributions to True. So many on the BrightRoll team have engaged and contributed to our True Founder Platform: Tod and Dru were early leaders in our first Founder Camps, many have attended (and even taught – thanks Beth and Erin!) at True University events, and over the years BrightRoll has employed more TEC Fellows than any other True company.

BrightRoll has been a big and special part of True for these past eight years.

Last night one of the more recent employees asked me why I invested in BrightRoll. “I didn’t invest in BrightRoll,” I replied, “I believed in Tod.”

Congratulations to Tod and Team BrightRoll. We wish you the best success in this next chapter, and True was honored to be your partner.