Marin Software ended in a Delaware bankruptcy court. It began as a bet on the ad budget. The San Francisco company sold cloud software that let advertisers and agencies run campaigns across search, display, social and mobile from one screen, then measure what each dollar earned. When it listed on the New York Stock Exchange in March 2013 at $14 a share, marketers were spreading their money across more ad channels every year.

Three Co-Founders, One Dashboard

Chris Lien founded Marin in 2006 and soon brought in Wister Walcott and Joseph Chang as co-founders. Lien had been chief operating officer of Adteractive, an online performance marketing company. Marin called its product a Revenue Acquisition Management platform. It handled reporting, ad creation and bidding across many publishers, sold as a subscription service. The pitch was plain: big ad buyers needed one tool to see which ads paid off.

From the NYSE to Chapter 11

Marin priced its IPO at $14 a share in March 2013 and listed on the NYSE as MRIN. The business shrank over the following decade. By early 2025 Marin had about 80 employees, and in March it cut 22 of them. On July 1, 2025, it filed for Chapter 11. Under a plan confirmed that August, Kaxxa Holdings and lender 5Y took ownership. The old public shares were canceled in September 2025.

Cover: A Marine, George Inness. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for a seascape (Marin, by the Pacific).