Rewarded engagement platform Perk has sold its mobile app development platform Corona Labs to the latter's CEO.

Roj Niyogi is a co-founder of Perk, and was installed as CEO of Corona Labs in December 2015 after Perk bought the developer for $2.3 million.

He returned all of his stock to Perk as part of the deal, and will receive $1.75 million. The company will also pay up to $750,000 over the next 12 months to Niyogi.

Next chapter

Niyogi will be stepping down from his role as President and Board Member at Perk following his acquisition of Corona Labs.

"I'm excited for the next chapter in building Corona and also for the ongoing partnership with Perk," said Niyogi.

"It has been an amazing experience from co-founding Perk, taking it public on the TSX, and now focusing on Corona."

Tough competition

Perk CEO Ted Hastings noted in a statement that it had been investing in excess of $1 million every three months into Corona Labs.

Motivations for the sale appear to be to save on these costs and move the money spent to other areas of the business.

Hastings also said that following the integration of its platform into Corona Labs earlier this year, "the competition for mobile development engines accelerated".

This appears to have made Perk look again at the acquisition and decide to sell it off less than 12 months after the purchase.

The mobile engine space has for mobile has fierce competition, and includes the likes of Unity, Unreal Engine, Amazon Lumberyard and King's DeFold tech, to name a few.