Mobile marketing platform AppLovin is eyeing up an initial public offering in 2020 to raise as much as $1 billion.
As reported by Fortune, the company currently employs 220 staff with offices in San Francisco, Berlin, Beijing and Tokyo.
The company is said to be profitable, unlike most US firms that have recently gone public. Fortune puts the number of profitable companies at the time of their IPO in 2018 at 16 per cent.
Deal maker
Back in 2017, AppLovin had been set to sell to Orient Hontai Capital for $1.4 billion, but the deal fell through after concerns from the US government about a foreign company having access to the firm’s data.
Orient instead acquired a 9.98 per cent stake for $140 million and AppLovin took on an $841 million debt investment from Orient.
Last year private equity firm KKR & Co purchased a minority stake in AppLovin for $400 million. At the time KKR called the investment a bet on the future growth of mobile advertising and gaming.
As well as its ad and monetisation services, AppLovin launched its games publishing division Lion Studios last year. That company has found success in the hyper-casual games market around the world with titles such as Draw In, Love Balls and Happy Glass, to name a few.
You can learn more about mobile monetisation and the hyper-casual games market at Pocket Gamer Connects Hong Kong on July 17th to 18th.
