Widespace

Patrick Figerland saw mobile advertising as a fantastic media channel in the early 2000s, but the industry wasn't ready. He launched Widespace in 2007 as an engineer with a vision to build technology that could unlock the mobile advertising market. Initially, nobody wanted to buy the technology—the media industry was skeptical about mobile. So Patrick pivoted to selling media instead, fueled by his proprietary technology.

By 2009, Widespace had evolved into an ad network. Patrick charged roughly $10 CPM (cost per thousand impressions) and took a 40% cut of the ad spend flowing through the system. That first year of the new model, they were processing about $2 million in ad spend, netting roughly $800,000 in revenue with a tiny team of fewer than 10 people.

Widespace grew steadily by targeting both demand-side (advertisers and media agencies) and supply-side (publishers) customers. The value proposition was simple: superior mobile-focused technology powered by proprietary machine learning algorithms trained daily. By 2016, they had secured about 1,000 companies pushing money through their platform—including 75% of the top 50 global advertisers and major media agencies like WPP. On the supply side, they controlled relationships with roughly 500 publications, from traditional magazines to emerging apps.

The early media arbitrage model (taking 40% cuts) worked to bootstrap the company to scale, but it had ceiling limitations. Patrick recognized that the real money was in selling technology, not taking media margins. Around 2014-2015, Widespace began a strategic shift: they continued the legacy media business while aggressively moving into a SaaS-like model. The new technology model involved taking a percentage cut on transaction volume (starting around 50% for demand-side, declining to a floor of 5-10% for massive volume) plus additional revenue from supply-side cuts and premium data/algorithm features. This change was crucial—pure technology had 100% gross margins versus the mixed model's 40%. The company also differentiated itself through technical superiority: advanced machine learning for interest-based targeting (eliminating the need for cookies), zero fraud (with a fraud guarantee), and 100% viewability rates—rare advantages in the ad tech industry.

By 2016, Widespace was processing $36-40 million in annual ad spend with approximately $17 million in gross profit, operating at roughly 50% blended gross margin. The company had grown to 130 employees and raised $30 million in VC funding from non-strategic investors to fuel scaling. Patrick deliberately avoided strategic investors (media companies) to maintain independence and flexibility with customers. The company was rapidly phasing out the old media model in favor of the high-margin technology business, positioning itself as the mobile ad tech leader serving the world's largest advertisers and publishers.