Rocket Fuel took off at the end of last week.
Stock trading was actually halted for a time when the ad tech company got an acquisition offer from rival company Gravity4.
Gravity4 made an unexpected bid to pay $350 million cash for Rocket Fuel.
According to Re/code’s Kara Swisher, Gravity4 CEO Gurbaksh Chahal wrote in a letter to the company’s board: “I have observed that Rocket Fuel has hit a road block in this environment, and continues to struggle with its declining gross margins, as evidenced by its recently reported loss of $13.6 million in Q1, with no guidance as to what the remainder of 2015 holds in store … For Rocket Fuel, the status quo is not an option.”
The story was reported by Business Insider.
While it’s not unusual for stocks to halt trading, it is rare for this to happen with an ad tech company.
“Chahal is the troubled founder of another ad tech company, RadiumOne, from which he was ousted by his board after he was accused of punching his girlfriend,” revealed Business Insider. “The prosecution dropped felony charges after a plea bargain in which he pleaded guilty to two misdemeanors: domestic assault and domestic violence.”
Chahal later started Gravity4, a rival ad tech company that in the past nine months has made nine acquisitions of small ad tech companies such as Triggit and, most recently, AdX Search.
Known as a “perennial self-publicist who once appeared on Oprah,” Chahal has both fans and critics. He claims his new company is currently valued at $1 billion.
