There's something adorable about Nick Grouf, the babyfaced, waggle-eared cofounder of Spot Runner. Who would think he'd be capable of bilking investors out of tens of millions of dollars, as one shareholder charges?
You know when a layoff's really bad? When the CEO calls Valleywag to spin it. Spot Runner's Nick Grouf rang us up to let us know he was laying off 115 of the 385 or so employees at his online-advertising concern, which helps small businesses manage the complicated process of buying TV ads. The cuts follow a round of…
Nick Grouf once told me he started his online-advertising agency, Spot Runner, in Los Angeles, not Silicon Valley, for one reason: The video-production talent he needed to customize television ads en masse was down south. Now, a laid-off employee tells us Spot Runner has axed 100 employees, and is abandoning its…
Having walked away from Yahoo, Microsoft is supposedly eager to buy a passel of online-advertising startups. Los Angeles-based Spot Runner is a natural target; it uses Microsoft technologies, has hired Microsoft executives, and was founded by Nick Grouf, who sold a startup to Microsoft a decade ago. Spot Runner's…
Spot Runner, the Los Angeles-based TV-advertising startup, is just the latest to follow past rounds of fundraising with another quick grab for money. The company has raised $51 million from a group of international media investors — not the Sand Hill Road club, but corporate names like Grupo Televisa and LVMH. Why…
Startup SaysMe, which will produce generic, re-brandable commercial video spots for local businesses and small-town politicians, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from a group of venture firms, including Katalyst Films, home of male model-turned-VC Ashton Kutcher, as well as Intel and Prime Capital's…
Spot Runner, an L.A.-based startup, creates and places TV ads for businesses, especially those which don't usually advertise on TV. That, at least, is its pitch to big agencies, by which Spot Runner doesn't want to be viewed as competition. That explains its latest hire: Former Interpublic Media CEO Mark Rosenthal,…
Microsoft VP Joanne Bradford has left the company and will join Los Angeles-based ad agency Spot Runner. Even with a new title of EVP, it's hardly a leap up the ladder. Our guess on why Bradford bolted? A former executive at Microsoft and Yahoo told us, " I shudder to think about a MSNBC.com and Yahoo News…
Has Nick Grouf, the CEO of advertising startup Spot Runner, spent too much time in Los Angeles? That's the only reason I can think of for his company's investment in 60Frames, an online-video product and distribution startup. It's especially odd that Spot Runner, which only recently raised some venture capital…
