Affle (India) Ltd, the domestic arm of the Singapore-based mobile marketing solutions company Affle, has acquired a Spain-based Mediasmart Mobile S.L., a programmatic and proximity marketing firm.
In a stock-exchange disclosure, Affle said it would acquire Mediasmart for €5.12 million (around $5.66 million or Rs 40.93 crore at current exchange rates). It will initially acquire 94.78% of the Spanish firm’s shares by the end of March and will take ownership of the remaining 5.22% by the same time next year.
The acquisition marks the first for a Gurugram-based company in Europe.
Mediasmart’s platform will add to Affle’s strategic offerings and will allow it to build its presence in the European, Latin American and US markets. The acquisition consideration also includes payments to Mediasmart’s employees, which will be paid out over a period of four years.
“Their proximity marketing programmatic platform strengthens our omnichannel platform to enable marketers to drive incremental online and offline conversions in both developed and emerging markets,” Anuk Khanna Sohum, CEO and MD at Affle, said.
Separately, Mediasmart CEO Noelia Amoedo said the move would help the company to offer its technological differentiation and marketing campaigns to a larger consumer base. The company, which has a presence in Madrid and Brussels, uses its platform to provide advertisers with impact measurability and location-targeted campaigns.
Affle was founded in 2006 by Anuj Khanna Sohum and Anuj Kumar. It offers a mobile-audience-as-a-service platform to help commerce and marketing companies promote their mobile programmes. It also offers a fraud-analytics-as-a-service platform to detect and prevent mobile advertising fraud.
The firm operates through seven offices worldwide having over 236 employees as on May 2019. Besides Singapore, the company has offices in Gurugram, Mumbai, Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur.
The company listed itself on the stock markets in August last year. Its shares made a strong debut, listing at a 25% premium to the issue price and then climbing higher. Affle’s initial public offering received an astounding response with high demand across investor categories. The IPO of 3.37 million shares — excluding the anchor allotment — was subscribed 86.5 times.
