TubeMogul's IPO is a go, with share pricing off to a rocky start

$10.48. That’s what TubeMogul’s shares are trading for right now on the Nasdaq exchange, a few hours after the company went public Friday.

Initial share pricing was $7 per share, down considerably from its projected $13. TubeMogul sought to raise around $90 million initially, but as it stands, the software marketing company raised just $43 million. And given the current trading price, it would seem that at least some of that $90 million was still on the table for the taking.

Despite the flux, TubeMogul chief and co-founder Brett Wilson was basking with the elation of a multimillionaire. Not bad for a guy from Green Bay who moved to the Valley to build his dream while a student at Cal Berkeley.

“This signals to the world that were an independent, standalone, and enduring company,” Wilson told VentureBeat, after admitting to imbibing a few glasses of champagne.

We shall see. In the short term, at least, Wilson has good reason to smile.

TubeMogul is based in Emeryville, Calif The company produces software that allows brand advertisers to take control of video ad campaigns: planning them, executing them, buying media, and optimizing the campaigns themselves.

In other words, TubeMogul is a one-stop-shop for big brand advertisers to create and deploy their own campaigns, as Wilson said, at the touch of a button. The beauty with the software is that the middle-man, the ad brokers, are excised from the equation.

“We are,” Wilson said, “automating an industry with software.”

Wilson launched his company from a dorm room at UC Berkeley. He bootstrapped the endeavor along with his friend, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Wilson said that instead of the archaic ad proposal process that usually applies to brands wanting to sell themselves with video ads or otherwise, TubeMogul aggregates “all the disparate functions under one platform.”