Rubicon

• The U.S. Department of Justice filed a similar civil antitrust suit against Google on Jan. 24, 2023.
• The online ad ecosystem is largely built around “programmatic advertising,” a system for placing advertisements from millions of advertisers on millions of websites.
• The system uses computers to automate bidding by advertisers on available ad spaces, often with transactions occurring faster than would be possible manually.

Programmatic advertising, explained

• Rather than each website and advertiser pairing up to run ads together, advertisers work with demand-side platforms – tech companies that let advertisers buy ads.
• Websites work with supply-side platforms – tech companies that pay sites to put ads on their page.
• These companies handle the details of figuring out which websites and users should be matched with specific ads.
• And it allows websites to solicit ads from countless potential advertisers without needing to contact or reach an agreement with any of them.

Screening out bad ads

• This means that online advertising companies have a big responsibility to prevent harmful ads from reaching users, but they sometimes fall short.
• There are some checks against bad ads at multiple levels.
• Ad networks, supply-side platforms and demand-side platforms typically have content policies restricting harmful ads.
• For example, a site could block a particular advertiser that has been running scammy ads on their page, or specific ad networks that have been serving low-quality ads.
• Despite this deception, ads like these may not have violated Google’s content policies for political content, data collection or misrepresentation, or were simply missed in the review process.

Bad ads by design

• Lastly, some examples of “bad” ads are intentionally designed to be misleading and deceptive, by both the website and ad network.
• Studies have shown that this is likely because users have difficulty telling the difference between native ads and the website’s content.
• You may have seen native ads on many news and media websites, including on major sites like CNN, USA Today and Vox.

• Rubicon Technologies, Inc. (“Rubicon” or the “Company”) (NYSE: RBT), a leading digital marketplace for waste and recycling and provider of innovative software-based products for businesses and governments worldwide, today announced that it has deployed its smart city technology in more than 100 cities, including eight of the top 20 U.S. cities by population.
• Working with Rubicon allows us to provide better services, save taxpayer dollars, and deliver a better quality of life for Houstonians.”
  RUBICONSmartCity™ is the smartest way for cities, counties, and other municipalities to manage heavy-duty fleets.
• It is a proprietary, cloud-based technology suite that helps local governments run faster, smarter, and more effective waste, recycling, and heavy-duty municipal fleet operations.
• “Local governments today are required to do more with less,” said Conor Riffle, Senior Vice President of Smart Cities at Rubicon.

• Rubicon Technologies, Inc. (“Rubicon” or the “Company”) (NYSE: RBT), a leading digital marketplace for waste and recycling and provider of innovative software-based products for businesses and governments worldwide, today announced the completion of its final key strategic finance goal, as previously discussed on the Company’s earnings calls since the fourth quarter of 2022.
• The new $75 million term loan and revolving credit line of up to $90 million were secured through Avenue Sustainable Solutions and MidCap Financial, respectively, and provide significantly enhanced liquidity to the Company.
• “We are excited to announce that we have achieved our final key strategic finance goal for 2023,” said Kevin Schubert, CFO of Rubicon.
• "There are few companies in the waste space with such advanced and differentiated technology.

• NGP is pleased to announce the final closing of NGP Energy Transition IV, L.P. (“NGP Energy Transition IV” or the “Fund”) at $700 million of total capital commitments.
• NGP Energy Transition IV was activated in April 2022 and has invested over $100 million in seven portfolio companies, several of which are profiled below.
• In 2020, NGP accelerated its energy transition investment effort and has since committed and invested over $600 million in the energy transition across more than 20 portfolio companies.
• Phil Deutch, NGP Partner and NGP Energy Transition Fund Head, commented, “NGP partners with outstanding management teams to drive significant growth and value creation.