That title falls to the other tenant at the creative office building, Viant Technology Inc., which capped off a busy 15-month period last week with a well-received IPO that valued the advertising software company (Nasdaq: DSP) at around $3.3 billion as of press time.
It’s quite the return for a company many dismissed as a relic of another era, based on its purchase of one-time social media hotspot MySpace a decade ago. That was before Viant turned its full attention toward digital advertising.
“We’ve just come and gotten here against all odds, against the biggest competitors, Google, Facebook. We know all the big giants that are out there in digital advertising. And for the little company from Orange County to go from unknown to now publicly listed, it really is a fantastic feeling,” Viant CEO Tim Vanderhook told our Kevin Costelloe on the first day of the company being publicly traded.
The 28-year-old Luckey—whose Anduril a week ago announced plans to move its HQ to Costa Mesa—has youth on his side over his corporate neighbors. Tim Vanderhook turned the ripe old age of 40 on Valentine’s Day, while his older brother Chris Vanderhook, Viant’s Chief Operating Officer, is 42.
No HQ moves for Viant, in OC or elsewhere, are expected, say the brothers, who bought back control of Viant in late 2019. Each has a 14% stake in the public company, records indicate.
“We’re focused on staying here in Orange County,” said Chris Vanderhook, who noted he and his two brothers started the company in 1999 out of their parents’ house in Yorba Linda.
For more on their plans going forward, see next week’s print edition.
Jimmy P knows how to build a chipmaking giant. As CEO of Aliso Viejo’s Microsemi, the exec more formally known as James Peterson grew that tech firm into one valued at $10.3 billion when it was sold in 2018 to Microchip Technology.
He’s starting smaller at Irvine’s Mobix Labs; the 5G-focused firm just named Peterson its new chairman. See page 10 for more on that upstart firm’s unveiling, which includes $12.5M in funding.
Peterson and his wife, Sheila, also are co-chairs for UCI’s $2 billion Brilliant Future fundraising campaign; he tells Costelloe they’re well on their way to meeting that mark.
“I think we’re a little over a billion as we speak,” he said last week, noting that a good amount of the funds raised will be directed to medical areas.
He’s still an optimist on reaching UCI’s goal, saying: “My guess is when we close the two (billion dollars), we just go for three, right?”
The billion-dollar arm and legs of Patrick Mahomes weren’t enough for the Kansas City Chiefs to win another title, but it’s still been a good month for his Newport Beach agent, Leigh Steinberg.
The real-life version of Jerry Maguire noted after the game that he also reps Tampa Bay Buccaneers running back Ronald Jones Jr., who counted 61 rushing yards in the big game.
The 71-year-old Steinberg also reported that he received a vaccination earlier this month at Soka University; see page 1 for more on the county’s efforts.
