MoPub, a US-based mobile advertising technology company which provides an advertising platform and exchange for mobile app publishers, and which is backed by investors including Jafco Ventures, and Iris Capital, is being acquired by US-based social networking service Twitter for an estimated price of $350m in Twitter stock.
Previously, MoPub raised $12m in its series B round in September 2012, led by Japan state and corporate-backed venture capital firm Jafco Ventures and joined by Iris Capital, a venture capital group managing mobile phone operator Orange and advertising services Publicis Group’s joint corporate venturing initiative; existing investors, venture capital firms Accel Partners and Harrison Metal Capital, also participated in the B round, having invested $6.5m in MoPub’s A round in July 2011.
Jim Payne, chief executive officer of MoPub, said in a blog post: “Like MoPub, Twitter has been ‘mobile first’ since their inception, which makes our two companies a natural match … We can’t wait to ‘join the flock’ and continue to build incredible products for publishers.”
In a blog announcement, Twitter stated: “The two major trends in the ad world right now are the rapid consumer shift toward mobile usage, and the industry shift to programmatic buying. Twitter sits at the intersection of these, and we think by bringing MoPub’s technology and team to Twitter, we can further drive these trends for the benefit of consumers, advertisers, and agencies.
“The MoPub team has built a leading mobile ad exchange, and their focus on providing transparency to advertisers and publishers aligns with our values. We’ll continue to invest in and improve their core business. In particular, we think there is a key opportunity to extend many types of native advertising across the mobile ecosystem through the MoPub exchange.
“We also plan to use MoPub’s technology to build real-time bidding into the Twitter ads platform so our advertisers can more easily automate and scale their buys.”