News

Vungle and Liftoff merge to create end-to-end mobile adtech

Consolidation upscales

Date Type Companies involved Size
August 24th, 2021 merger Liftoff
Vungle
Not disclosed
Vungle and Liftoff merge to create end-to-end mobile adtech

Adtech companies Vungle and Liftoff have agreed to merge.

Both companies are majority owned by giant private equity fund Blackstone making the corporate aspects of the deal simple.

However, it's not been disclosed what the combined company will be called.

Based in Redwood City, Liftoff was founded in 2012, and provides mobile app and game developers with a performance-based marketing optimisation platform.

It says it handles more than two billion mobile ads daily across more than 550,000 mobile apps and games in more than 140 countries

San Francisco-based Vungle calls itself a mobile app and game discovery and monetisation platform. Its SDK has over 100,000 direct integrations in terms of app and game publishers and 15,000 content creators in its influencer marketing platform

Combined, the two companies will provide a complete service both on the supply and the demand side of advertising.

In terms of upper management, Liftoff CEO Mark Ellis will lead the combined company as CEO and Vungle CEO Jeremy Bondy will take the role of president.

The move echoes increasing consolidation in the mobile adtech section, with Zynga building out its own inhouse stack buying Chartboost, while Vungle itself over the past year has acquired four companies; AlgoLift, Game Refinery, TreSensa and JetFuel.

Better together

“In joining forces with Vungle, we offer not only the industry’s most complete and scaled platform, but also maintain our focus on serving our mobile customers without any conflicts or competing offerings," commented Ellis.

"This merger accelerates our vision to become the essential destination for all mobile developers, and the joining of two leaders as part of this industry-defining transaction will drive huge value for our partners,” echoed Bondy.

“Together, we can address the complete mobile app growth cycle - from app design and development to marketing, measurement, and monetization.”

The transaction is expected to close at the end of September.


Contributing Editor

A Pocket Gamer co-founder, Jon is Contributing Editor at PG.biz which means he acts like a slightly confused uncle who's forgotten where he's left his glasses. As well as letters and cameras, he likes imaginary numbers and legumes.