DeFi

James

Partner

RTB Digital, Inc. (<a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/RTB/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">NASDAQ: RTB</a>) announced today the successful closing of its merger with RYVYL Inc. (NASDAQ: RVYL), and the commencement of trading of the combined company’s common stock on the Nasdaq Capital Market. RTB is the world’s only full-stack enterprise media platform, and represents what the Company describes as a multi-generational leap in technology, engineered to transform the global media industry from Web1 to Web4.
<blockquote>
 “We have been building and refining our media platform model for 30 years,” said James Heckman, CEO of RTB Digital. “Our big leap came when we combined assets with DeFi inventor, Eyal Hertzog and his brilliant ‘DeWeb’ team, uniting as AI technologies began to extract value from media at an existential level.” As our brand suggests, Roundtable was purpose-built for elite professional media: we use AI to protect, human-created content, eliminate operational costs, and deliver net-zero payments with immutable, transparent reporting, ensuring publishers secure assets while creating new ones.”
</blockquote>
RTB's full-stack enterprise platform combines AI, DeFi, and Web3 infrastructure to provide professional media - decentralized publishing, data encryption and IP protection, syndication, revenue optimization, AI-based business intelligence, management and operations, and custom network applications.&nbsp;
<a href="https://www.thestreet.com/crypto/markets/roundtable-founders-and-tech-platform-visionaries-unite-to-launch-ai-powered-defi-media-platform-at-the-possible-2026-media-conference" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Related: Roundtable Founders, Tech Platform Visionaries unite, to launch the Impossible - AI Powered, DeFi Media Platform at the “Possible” 2026 Media Conference</a>
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 <figcaption>
 In Photo: Chairman Walton Comer, CEO/Founder James Heckman, Co-Founder Eyal Hertzog
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<h2 id="rtb-platform-is-now-live-serving-hundreds-of-premium-media-clients">RTB Platform is now Live, Serving Hundreds of Premium Media Clients</h2>
The AI/DeFi B2B2C platform is live, driving millions in revenue and consumers for enterprise clients -- which includes brand partners like Yahoo and TheStreet -- and powers a network of independent sports journalists, including the recent migration of Sports Illustrated’s top revenue-producing team publishers to Roundtable. The company’s working capital provides a resilient, decentralized financial foundation designed to autonomize payments, modernize publishing infrastructure, and empower the next generation of global media brands.
<h2 id="vision-leading-200-billion-premium-media-marketplace-from-web1-to-web4">Vision: Leading $200 Billion Premium Media Marketplace from Web1 to Web4</h2>
Despite the scale of the market, enterprise media remains structurally underserved at the infrastructure layer, with companies forced to operate across disconnected systems that impede revenue capture, audience ownership and operational efficiency. At the same time, AI platforms are increasingly extracting value and user engagement from hundreds of billions invested in human-created content, while opaque data practices and fragmented monetization systems continue to disadvantage publishers and journalists.
Roundtable’s AI-driven DeFi and Web3 platform is designed to solve this structural gap through a single enterprise integration, spanning the full media operations stack, positioning RTB as the connective infrastructure layer for the next generation of professional media.
RTB early investor and now CFO, Aly Madhavji specializes in blockchain infrastructure investments: “After diligencing and investing in hundreds of blockchain infrastructure teams, this is the one that stands apart,” said Madhavji at the time of his appointment. “Our platform gives publishers what they’ve needed for years: real-time revenue, transparent reporting, and control of their data, audiences, and IP-- only possible by combining DeFi with AI.”
<blockquote>
 "Our latest platform brings together decades of the founder's major digital media experiences, on top of technology the market never dreamed possible, architectured by true visionaries in the space," noted RTB Chair and co-founder Walton Comer.
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<h2 id="nasdaq-listing-and-merger-highlights">Nasdaq Listing and Merger Highlights</h2>
<ul>
 <li>RYVYL shareholder approval of merger with ~ 99% of votes cast in favor.</li>
 <li>Fully Compliant with SEC clearance, and Nasdaq approval of merger closure</li>
 <li>Combined Entity will operate as RTB Digital, Inc., trade on Nasdaq as “RTB”.</li>
 <li>Share Structure: ~13.2 million shares outstanding, with 11.2 million (~85%) subject to one-year lock-up, then staged 12-month release. ~2 million shares trading</li>
 <li>Capital Position: Balance sheet sufficient to support operations for more than one year</li>
 <li>Strategic Partnerships: Company has entered a yet to be disclosed, binding agreement with a major media company, which includes a non-refundable $10 million deposit; current strategic partnerships include Yahoo, TheHockeyNews, TheStreet, Arena and 200 sports team publishers formerly operating within Sports Illustrated</li>
 <li>Going forward Strategy. The Company plans to execute Heckman’s 35-year strategy of operating platform partnerships with major media, and professional media and sports organizations. RTB’s sales team will engage the premium media ecosystem and business model, now powered by what the Company believes is the industry’s most modern, efficient and economically advantaged platform.</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="leadership">Leadership</h2>
James Heckman, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of RTB Digital. Roundtable marks Heckman’s 10th successful major media coalition platform, following more than three decades architecting media infrastructure and integrated partnerships with many of the world’s leading media brands, including Yahoo, AOL, MSN, Disney, News Corp, SoftBank Group, NFL, Sports Illustrated, TheStreet, Turner, thousands of professional media brands and every major U.S. sports team. Heckman founded Maven/Arena, Rivals.com, Rivals.net Europe, Scout.com and 5to1.com, with ventures acquired by Yahoo twice and News Corp. He has taken three technology companies public, including RTB. While leading Global Media Strategy at Yahoo, Heckman architected the original AOL, MSN, and Yahoo coalition that evolved into today's $200 billion premium digital advertising marketplace. As Chief Strategy Officer for News Corp Digital, he architected the first data-targeted social advertising model and negotiated the landmark $1 billion Google-MySpace advertising alliance, while his strategy team developed Hulu’s original business model. Every major network and platform created by James Heckman since 1990 continues to operate in some form today, beginning with Rivals.com, the very first social, subscription and blogging network backed by SoftBank Group, Intel and News Corp.
Eyal Hertzog, CTO, Co-Founder, is best known as inventor of fundamental DeFi (decentralized finance) technology including automated market making (AMM) and the decentralized liquidity pool. He founded DeWeb Ltd which developed the ground-breaking Web3 community, publishing and monetization platform, operating on a DeFi platform, which Roundtable acquired. Prior to DeWeb, he co-founded and architected the pioneering DeFi company Bancor and co-founded video-sharing service MetaCafe, predating YouTube.
Walton Comer, Chairman, Co-Founder, is co-founder and Chief Investment Officer of XBTO Group, and founding investor/advisor in Deribit, recently sold to Coinbase for $3B. His deep experience in quantitative finance includes tenure as Research Director for Thornhill Partners, Quantitative Analyst for SAC Capital, and co-founder and Director of research technology company Lucid, while his new AI company is in an integrated partnership with RTB Digital.
Aly Madhavji, CFO, Co-Founder, is a globally recognized blockchain investor, chartered finance professional, and Managing Partner of Blockchain Founders Fund, invested in more than 200 blockchain infrastructure companies across global markets. Madhavji brings a rare convergence of institutional finance and deep native blockchain expertise to RTB, and is credentialled as a CA, CPA, CMA, CIM, MBA from INSEAD (Senior Blockchain Fellow), and Schwarzman Scholar from Tsinghua University, and served on University of Toronto’s Governing Council.
Bill Sornsin, COO, Co-Founder co-founded Maven/Arena, servicing 300 brands including SI, History.com, and TheStreet. After Sornsin led MSN’s Core Technology team, he co-founded Rivals.com and Scout.com, serving as CTO for both. With Scout’s 2005 acquisition by Fox Interactive Media, he joined Fox as VP of engineering and operations for that unit, later served as CTO of online advertising platform 5to1 (acquired by Yahoo!), returned to Scout in 2013 to rearchitect (acquired by CBS), and now leads operations for RTB Digital. Sornsin holds a BS in electrical/computer engineering from the University of Iowa and an MBA from UCLA.
<a href="https://www.thestreet.com/crypto/business/roundtable-ceo-james-heckman-announces-new-cfo-aly-madhavji" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Related: Roundtable CEO James Heckman Announces New CFO Aly Madhavji</a>
Disclosure: This article was provided by Roundtable, the subject of the story. Roundtable and its affiliates have a direct financial interest in the securities of the company discussed. This communication should not be construed as investment advice.

RTB Debuts on Nasdaq: AI/DeFi Media Platform “Roundtable” to Trade as RTB

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