Boulder, Colorado-based Trada, which launched as crowdsourced search marketplace in 2008, announced Monday on its website that it is unable to pay its creditors and is shutting down, effective immediately. See below for the announcement.
Trada had pulled in some $19 million in funding through several rounds, beginning in 2010. The lead institutional backers were Google Ventures and Foundry Group.
The crowdsourcing model was targeted at mid-tier advertisers to match them with PPC experts to work on their paid search campaigns and improve management efficiencies and lower costs for advertisers who might otherwise have worked with an in-house team or agency. The size of the team working on an account would adjust to the advertisers’ budget, performance goals and other factors. Paid search marketers could join the platform after passing a certification test.
At the end of 2011, the company closed a Series D round of funding with $9 million and said it hoped to be profitable by the end of 2012. The company hit the Inc. 5000 list of fastest growing startups and had a staff of 75.
But, in 2013, founder and then-CEO Niel Robertson, laid off most of the staff and tried a reboot, in part with a product called PPCPath, which let advertisers pay for expertise on a project basis and use the software platform to run basic reports to help optimize campaigns on a self-serve basis. A product for ongoing management services remained, but was billed as an enterprise product.
Robertson stepped down as CEO in January, 2014, but remained with the company as chief strategy officer. At that time, he told tech blog Xconomy that the company had become profitable after the staff layoffs.
The company is referring its customers to WordStream and White Shark Media.
Here is the announcement from Matt Harada, who had succeeded Robertson as CEO.
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