• by Tyler Loechner , Staff Writer @mp_tyler, April 3, 2014

Rubicon Project officially went public on Wednesday, with CEO Frank Addante and a host of other company execs ringing the bell to welcome “RUBI” to the New York Stock Exchange.

The company went public at $15 a share, and at one point yesterday afternoon the shares were trading at over $21 a pop, an increase of about 40%. The stock price hovered around the $20 mark since about 10:45 in the morning, and closed at $20.09, up 33.9%.

But it has been just one day, and a company’s IPO success story is not written in so much time. So who really cares? 

Well, for one, the host of ad tech companies lining up for their own IPOs are likely more than a little interested. And it must be encouraging that Rubicon’s first public steps have been a lot more Rocket Fuel-y and a lot less Tremor-y.

Brian Kane, chief operating officer at LiveRail, a company that is eying its own IPO, is happy to see any ad tech company do well in the public eye. "It is great to see the public markets continue to reward those companies who have adopted strategies that embrace programmatic buying and selling of advertising," he said.

When Rubicon filed its S-1, Pivotal Research Group’s Brian Wieser reckoned that a successful Rubicon IPO would encourage other companies to file their own public offerings.

So far, so good.

Photo by Ben Hider/NYSE Euronext.