AdMeld acquired by Google for $400 million?

Display to be a $200 billion industry, according to Google VP of display advertising

Google has acquired advertising platform AdMeld for $400 million, according to multiple sources.

We've reached out to confirm and will update when we hear word.

Online advertising is far from a static industry, and this acquisition would only be further proof of that.

Over 50 percent of the impressions sold through AdMeld are done through its real-time bidding platform. A year ago, only one percent of impressions were sold in real-time. The company attributes this explosion in usage to buyers’ desire for more accurate targeting and sellers’ desire for higher rates.

AdMeld also provides other tools, like FireMeld, an in-browser ad monitoring tool.

Current customers of the company include Answers.com, FOX News, The Weather Channel and over 500 others.

Founded in 2007 and headquartered in New York City, AdMeld has raised $30 million in venture capital from Foundry Group, Norwest Venture Partners, Spark Capital and Time Warner Investments. The company has offices in San Francisco, London, Berlin and Toronto.

Coincidentally (or not?), Google’s VP of display advertising, Neal Mohan, published a blog post Thursday morning on the future of display ads.

The ads of the future will be fewer, better and more engaging, in Mohan’s opinion. He believes the number of display ad impressions will decrease by 25 percent, but engagement will increase by 50 percent. His reasoning, which pretty much any end user can attest to, is that the current shotgun approach to advertising doesn’t really work well. As has been the natural progression with all things on the Web, advertising too will become more engaging.

Mohan says display will grow to become a $200 billion industry. And if a Google executive believes in that figure, then there’s really little reason to doubt that the tech giant would hesitate to spend nearly half a billion on a blooming display ad platform like AdMeld.

Read more about Mohan’s predictions here.