The demise of Geosign

My friend and former colleague Robert Thompson wrote a great piece on the fall of Geosign, the Guelph, Ont.-based company that was the recipient of the largest round of financing in Canadian venture capital history, in this month’s Financial Post Business magazine.

Guelph, Ont.-based Geosign generated as much as US$100-million in revenue at its peak by arbitraging Google AdSense and Yahoo Ads but little was known about the company in its heyday.

Google, in effect, cut Geosign’s success short when it changed the terms of its popular AdSense program, making the company’s business model untenable. American Capital, the firm that gave Geosign US$160-million, eventually took control of Geosign and split it into two divisions.