Glispa keeps scooping up companies.
On Tuesday, the Berlin-based mobile ad platform plunked down an undisclosed sum to buy native mobile ad exchange Avocarrot, its third acquisition in less than two years.
Glispa bought MoneyTap, a Russian mobile mediation platform, in March, followed by the acquisition of Brazilian mobile performance agency Mobils a couple of months later. Its overall goal is to be a one-stop shop for app monetization, from user acquisition to engagement and retention.
“Whatever M&A we’ve done in the last year and a half has been about trying to facilitate that vision,” said Freddy Friedman, Glispa’s chief product officer.
Glispa plans to fully integrate the Avocarrot technology, which helps app publishers create and place native ads, into Ampiri, Glispa’s mediation solution. Friedman anticipates the process will take several months. Ampiri is built on top of technology that Glispa acquired from MoneyTap.
Avocarrot brings to the table a critical component that was missing: programmatic. It focuses solely on the programmatic buying and selling of native ads for in-app environments and has integrations with around 25 demand-side platforms.
The company also has a native video ad product and a tool that allows publishers to break down and convert standard IAB banner ads into ad units that more natively fit the environment around them.
Although there are other mediation solutions out there, including some really enormous ones like Twitter’s MoPub and Google’s AdMob, native is only a component of what they provide, rather than the whole kit and caboodle.
There’s a need in the market for a programmatic mediation platform specifically attuned to native, said Avocarrot co-founder Conno Christou.
“It’s a killer combination because mediation is key, but there’s a lack of native supply and demand,” Christou said. “Although supply is getting better, demand is still lagging and fill rates for native are lower than banners. Mediation lets them optimize that.”
More and more app publishers are also gravitating toward native because it’s a way to monetize without hurting the experience.
“It’s a user-centric channel, which makes it a healthier channel for advertisers,” Christou said.
Which is why more mobile money is going native. Native ads will comprise more than 63.2% of global mobile display advertising by 2020, hitting around $53 billion, according to a report from Facebook and research firm IHS in April.
For the moment, Avocarrot will continue on as a separate entity under Glispa, but once the tech is integrated the Avocarrot brand will go away and clients will access the offering, along with the rest of Ampiri, through a single interface.
All of Avocarrot’s 18 employees will join Glispa, bringing the latter’s overall headcount to almost 270. Avocarrot will keep its existing offices in Athens and San Francisco.
