UPDATES: Deal gives Google its first Philly office
But won't say how much it's paying for the online ad sales firm founded by four Penn students
Google's DoubleClick confirms that the online search giant is buying the born-in-Philadelphia online advertising sales system Invite Media and Invite's Bid Manager online advertising sales system. Invite's funky Chestnut Street office will become Google's first office in Philadelphia (its closest operations before now were in New York and Pittsburgh).
UPDATED: "It's a very talented team, and a great business," Google spokesman Rob Shilkin told me. He said there were "no plans to change the Philly office."
Writes Google vp Neal Mohan: "We're big believers in the benefits and future of this type of display ad buying. But we're all just at the beginning. It can, and will, be much bigger than it is today, which will benefit the entire ecosystem - advertisers and agencies who can run more effective campaigns, demand-side platforms who offer real-time bidding services to advertisers and agencies, publishers who will get higher prices and more competition for their ad space (while controlling what space they make available, and to whom), and users who will see more useful ads that load faster."
No comment on the reported price estimates, which range in the several tens of millions of dollars.
Invite Media ceo Nat Turner told me he had to send my questions back to Google. Investor First Round Capital is celebrating the deal, says partner Chris Fralic. Google statement here, story about the firm and its recent Penn grad founders here.