• by Laurie Petersen , July 24, 2007

I caught up with Tacoda CEO Curt Viebranz before his panel and he gave me some insight to the timing of how the deal with AOL came together. (Viebranz will be reuniting with some old friends because he spent 17-odd years at Time Warner on the publishing side.)

In late May as the big deals were all coming down, TACODA decided to go after additional funding and talked to 10 financial investors and 10 strategics. Term sheets were in the works and AOL stepped in and said it didn't make sense to make an investment that would give it just 7% of the company. They needed to take a bigger position. (And they were looking for another network to add to their existing Advertising.com.)

Viebranz said it was a matter of Tacoda taking 24 months as an independent to get to the same number and possibly seeing the market conditions shift to their disadvantage, or doing the deal and getting the chance to scale quickly. He sees the deal as a way for Tacoda to triple its revenues in short order, while continuing to operate as a separate subsidiary.

It will take five weeks or so to clear the regulatory hurdles. Viebranz said TACODA will continue to take the high road on privacy and operate with a completely transparent model for consumers and publishers.

A lot of happy TACODA folk are in the room, as Viebranz had to stop every minute or so to give a high-five to a smiling staffer. TACODA has 95 employees and is bursting at the seams. They're close to a deal on a new space near their 7th Avenue offices, but the hunt for real estate has been in the works for months.