Airnow PLC, the mobile app management firm, acquired US-based mobile app and intelligence provider, MightySignal, for an undisclosed amount.
The consideration was said to be a “multi-million dollar deal”, with the US company continuing to be led by long-standing chief executive officer Ryan Buckley who will bring six mobile data experts with him into the larger group.
Las Vegas-based MightySignal tracks a billion mobile software developer kit (SDK) installations and millions of mobile ads every year.
For Airnow the deal follows several others over the past five years, including Priori Data, Airpush and Abilott, as part of its aim of becoming a single platform for the app economy.
The UK company said both companies stand to gain as their existing client bases of publishers, marketers and brands, together with digital marketers, B2B sales teams, financial investors or academic researchers, will gain deeper mobile market insights through the wider suite of data tools across the mobile app ecosystem.
Airnow co-founder and chief operating officer James Eggleston said: “We’re delighted to welcome Ryan and his fantastic team of highly skilled specialists to the Airnow family. Our business exists to benefit developers at every stage of their journey, and as the mobile app industry continues to grow at a tremendous rate, the addition of MightySignal and its unique benefits will only serve to power our customers’ capabilities.
“MightySignal offers a primary source of SDK intelligence, with the firm extracting data without reliance on third parties. This proprietary SDK detection technology, combined with the app store data scraping capabilities from AppMonsta, which the business acquired in February 2020, is a perfect fit with Airnow’s growth goals.”
Buckley added: “We're excited to have finally found a partner who believes in the importance of accurate mobile intelligence as much as we do. MightySignal entered the mobile data market as a leader in SDK intelligence and we recognised that to best serve our customers, we needed to offer more detailed app and publisher data. Under the Airnow Group, we can finally fulfil that vision.”
Buckley said he initially plans to integrate his team into Airnow and ensure clients and data feeds are not disrupted, before contributing to new product builds, sharing app and SDK data knowledge over the longer term.
Airnow, which generated US$33mln of turnover in 2020, up more than 300% on the previous year, said it plans more acquisitions over the coming year and a half.