Facebook plans to officially kill its video ad exchange LiveRail

Facebook plans to shutter LiveRail — the video ad exchange that it bought back in 2014 for a reported $400 million to $500 million — for good sometime in the very near future, according to sources.

LiveRail, which helps publishers manage and place their video ads, has been slowly bleeding inside Facebook for a while. It shut down its ad server business earlier this year, and Facebook told LiveRail employees in April to look for other jobs inside the company. Former LiveRail CEO Mark Trefgarne left around the same time.

In other words, the writing has been on the wall for some time now, but Facebook will soon make it official. A spokesperson confirmed that the exchange will soon be out of commission, but did not share a specific date. One source tells Recode it could be as soon as next week.

Update: A Facebook spokesperson sent along the following statement.

"We are discontinuing the LiveRail Private Exchange to focus on finding better ways for publishers to sell their ad space directly to advertisers, as well as expanding our video ad offering via Audience Network. This is what many of our publishing partners told us they wanted, and we believe this will make video ads more relevant to the people who watch them."

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

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