Mobile demand-side platform Jampp was acquired by Affle on Wednesday. It’s a mobile marketing company with a presence in India and Singapore.
There’s nothing like a little uncertainty (ahem, Apple) to spark M&A.
The mobile advertising industry has been experiencing a massive wave of consolidation in the wake of privacy-related platform changes.
Since February, AppLovin has acquired Adjust, Digital Turbine bought AdColony followed by Fyber, Zynga snapped up Chartboost and Vungle grabbed GameRefinery and TreSensa. (Vungle also bought AlgoLift in October of last year.)
“One of the main rationales in joining forces is being able to attack app advertiser problems from different angles and having a wider product set to help them throughout the user life cycle,” said Diego Meller, co-CEO and co-founder of Jampp, which was among the last independent mobile DSPs on the market.
“A lot of the consolidation we’ve seen recently has been about…looking to have multiple pieces of the puzzle,” he said.
In Jampp’s case, Meller said, its technology will help enhance what Affle has to offer and vice versa. Affle has a product suite for marketers with tools for user acquisition, brand marketing, retargeting and ad fraud detection. Affle also provides data and ad monetization services for publishers.
But Jampp brings technology Affle doesn’t yet have in its portfolio, in the form of a programmatic user acquisition platform.
“We see a lot of complementary strengths for our platforms and are confident that by leveraging these, we will strengthen our cost per converted user business and deliver greater scale and ROI to our customers,” said Anuj Khanna Sohum, CEO, chairman and managing director of Affle.
Jampp also has a presence in countries where Affle does not, such as Latin America and North America – and vice versa. Although Jampp has a small office in Singapore, it doesn’t yet have much of a footprint in Asia Pacific, which is Affle’s home base.
Although both Jampp and Affle are strong in Android-heavy regions, Jampp’s North America business gives it a purview into the iOS ecosystem, which has been roiled by Apple’s AppTrackingTransparency changes.
“There are many different ways in which we can help each other,” Meller said.
And that was true even before the deal officially closed. Meller and Khanna Sohum finalized the acquisition across time zones without ever meeting in person, which is emblematic of the art of deal making during a global pandemic.
Although Jampp declined to share a deal price, the company has been growing organically since its one and only funding round, Meller said. Back in 2015, it raised $7 million in Series A funding.
Jampp, which employs 96 people, will continue to operate as an independent entity within Affle.
Affle has been publicly listed on the National Stock Exchange and BSE (formerly Bombay Stock Exchange) in India since 2019.
Including Jampp, Affle has acquired nine companies since 2012, including omnichannel marketing platform Vizury in 2018 and app marketing and recommendation platform Appnext last year.