Though the terms of the deal have not been shared, Spotify has said that it will use the acquisition to accelerate its entry into the live audio space – a space that is, of course, currently led by Clubhouse.

“Creators and fans have been asking for live formats on Spotify, and we’re excited that soon, we’ll make them available to hundreds of millions of listeners and millions of creators on our platform,” said Gustav Söderström, Chief Research & Development Officer at Spotify. “The world already turns to us for music, podcasts, and other unique audio experiences, and this new live audio experience is a powerful complement that will enhance and extend the on-demand experience we provide today.”

In particular, Spotify aims to use the Locker Room app – which debuted in October 2020 – to open up live audio to a wider range of creators and fans, continuing to host sports-based programming while extending the experience to cater for music and cultural programming. This expansion will also see Spotify debut interactive features including real-time discussions, debates, ask me anything (AMA) sessions, and more.

“We are excited to join forces with Spotify and contribute to building the future of audio – we’ll invest more in our product, open the experience to Spotify’s audience, diversify our content offerings, and continue expanding the community we’ve built,” said Betty Labs Founder and CEO Howard Akumiah. “With Spotify, we’ll continue to offer the best home for sports fans and use the lessons we’ve learned along the way to create the ultimate destination for live conversation around music and culture.”

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TripleLift, founded in 2012, provides native programmatic advertising, leveraging computer vision technology to transform content into in-feed native ads that match the look of a publisher’s website. Vista intends to help drive TripleLift toward further innovation and accelerated global growth.

“We have developed into a leader in the advertising technology space and are excited about our next chapter,” said Eric Berry, Co-Founder and CEO of TripleLift. “When looking for an investment partner, we placed a premium on a deep understanding of ad tech and a willingness to lean into developing our portfolio of innovative, high-growth products. Vista is that partner.”

The transaction, expected to close in the second quarter of 2021, will see Berry will remain as CEO and on the Board of Directors, while early investors True Ventures and Edison Partners remain invested in the company.

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The combination of Digital Turbine and Fyber will create the largest independent growth platform for mobile app developers.

“Fyber’s focus on publisher solutions and its position as a top-tier partner for a diverse set of programmatic buyers make it a pivotal piece of the Digital Turbine Growth Platform,” said Bill Stone, CEO of Digital Turbine. “Fyber’s impressive growth over recent quarters shows the power of their publisher monetization suite and strength of publisher relationships as a top monetization partner.  We are committed to ongoing investment in Fyber’s product stack, growing their partner network, and enabling new growth opportunities from synergies throughout Digital Turbine, its customers and partners.”

Digital Turbine will launch a bid to acquire the remaining shares of Fyber in a mandatory takeover offer extended to outstanding shareholders following the expected closure of its transaction with Tennor in Q2 2021. Once Digital Turbine has secured 100 per cent of Fyber’s shares, it will terminate the platform’s listing on the Deutsche Börse Frankfurt stock exchange.

Last month, Digital Turbine agreed to acquire mobile ad platform AdColony from Otello Corp for a fee in the region of $350m and $375m.

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IronSource’s platform, which serves over 2.3bn monthly active users, enables app and game developers to monetise and analyse their apps. In 2020, it grew revenue 83 per cent year-over-year to $332m.

As a public company, IronSource will benefit from the financial and operational support of Thoma Bravo, a private equity firm with over 300 software investments.

“Joining forces with Thoma Bravo Advantage to bring IronSource to the public markets presents an opportunity to partner with the worlds leading software investor to achieve the next level of growth,” said Tomer Bar Zeev, CEO and Co-founder of IronSource. “Despite our previous progress pursuing a traditional IPO, when we met with Thoma Bravo Advantage we found an alignment of vision and shared conviction about the long-term growth we can drive at IronSource that made them the perfect partner as we take this next step in growing our company, and the market as a whole.”

The deal – which is expected to close in Q2 2021 – also includes investments from Tiger Global Management, Counterpoint Global (Morgan Stanley), Nuveen, Hedosophia, Wellington Management, The Baupost Group, and certain funds managed by Fidelity Investments Canada and other institutional investors.

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Devetry, a Colorado-based software consultancy, will help to support Dept’s continued expansion into the US, forming the backbone of its digital product and technology services alongside Boston-based Rocket Insights, which joined Dept in 2019. Devetry is already collaborating with Rocket to help US clients build and accelerate their digital businesses.

“Devetry has built a talented team stacked with a variety of languages, frameworks, databases, and tools, enabling them to deliver value to our clients from day one,” said Dimi Albers, CEO of Dept. “The addition of Devetry will add to our strong technology and engineering capabilities in the US, as well as open up exciting new markets for us in Denver and Portland.”

Devetry, founded in 2015, helps clients – including Arizona State University, NREL, and Intel – with strategy, product management, UX/UI design, firmware development, technology, and innovations that span mobile apps to enterprise technologies.

Under Amsterdam-headquartered Dept, Devetry will continue to operate under the leadership of CEO and Co-founder Brett Truka and CTO and Co-founder Allan Wintersieck.

“Our mission is to simplify the complex world of software and deliver the best results for our clients,” said Truka. “Joining Dept enables us to immediately expand our global footprint and our service offerings in data, digital marketing and commerce to provide more value to our clients across a diverse range of technologies. We both share a strong commitment to our clients and our people, so we couldn’t be more excited about the years ahead with Dept.”

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Square intends to use the acquisition to economically empower musicians by finding new ways to support their work, building on what the company has done for sellers over the years.

“It comes down to one simple idea: finding new ways for artists to support their work,” said Jack Dorsey, Co-founder and CEO of Square. “New ideas are found at intersections, and we believe there’s a compelling one between music and the economy. I knew Tidal was something special as soon as I experienced it, and it will continue to be the best home for music, musicians, and culture.”

Under the deal – expected to close in the second quarter of 2021 – Tidal will continue to operate independently within Square, alongside the Seller and Cash App ecosystems, with Shawn ‘Jay-Z’ Carter joining Square’s Board of Directors. Furthermore, all of Tidal’s artist shareholders will continue to be co-owners of the service.

“I said from the beginning that Tidal was about more than just streaming music, and six years later, it has remained a platform that supports artists at every point in their careers,” said Jay-Z. “Artists deserve better tools to assist them in their creative journey. Jack and I have had many discussions about Tidal’s endless possibilities that have made me even more inspired about its future. This shared vision makes me even more excited to join the Square board. This partnership will be a game-changer for many. I look forward to all this new chapter has to offer.”

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NN4M, based in Edinburgh, partners with commerce brands including Selfridges & Co., Nestlé, JD Wetherspoon, and River Island to create mobile solutions across multiple touchpoints. Wunderman Thompson will use the addition as a strategic step forward in its commitment to delivering cross-channel engagement platforms.

“The acquisition of NN4M allows Wunderman Thompson to take a significant step forward in delivering our long-term cross-channel strategy. Adding additional mobile expertise will substantially strengthen our online multichannel offering and allow us to deliver ever more sophisticated and powerful solutions on the most advanced app platform in the market. It also puts us in a strong position to inspire client solutions that support blended digital and store journeys, creating hybrid experiences that offer engagement across the customer journey,” said James Westoby, Wunderman Thompson Commerce UK CEO.

“With striking similarities across our working cultures, target customers and technology capabilities, NN4M offers a perfect fit for us – and we are hugely excited to continue our respective journeys together, providing brands and retailers with a best-in-class, experience-driven commerce offering.”

Jonathan Heap, Chief Technology Officer and Founder of NN4M, added, “Our acquisition by Wunderman Thompson, with its reputation for innovation and excellence, offers a fantastic opportunity for NN4M to build on its success within the commerce sector. As the digital economy continues to drive forward at ever increasing speeds, we are thrilled to be part of an exciting online retail future.”

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GameRefinery serves studios such as Zynga, King, Rovio, and Ubisoft with retention and monetisation insights through its cloud-based developer tools. Vungle will also gain access to GameRefinery’s image recognition and creative tagging capabilities, which will be leveraged by Vungle Creative Labs.

“The combined offering will enable Vungle to touch our advertisers across multiple areas of our platform with deeper creative analysis and insights, contextual targeting recommendations, and reporting,” said Martin Price, Vice President of Product at Vungle. “Given the privacy-related changes to iOS 14 and the industry at large, it is more important now than ever to find inventive ways of understanding the context of an ad placement and driving better creative targeting. The GameRefinery acquisition gives us a richer suite of data to let us do exactly that.”

GameRefinery’s Co-founder Markus Råmark, Veli-Pekka Julkunen, and Joel Julkunen, as well as the entire GameRefinery team, will join the Vungle organisation but will continue to operate out of the company’s Helsinki offices.

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Digital Turbine intends to use the acquisition, which is expected to close next month, to help toward its ambition of providing a comprehensive media and advertising solution for its partners, while providing relevant mobile content to end users.

“We are extremely excited to announce the acquisition of AdColony today,” said Bill Stone, CEO of Digital Turbine.  “We look forward to welcoming the AdColony team to the Digital Turbine family and believe that this strategic transaction will accelerate our growth and is a positive for our partners, advertisers, employees and shareholders.

“AdColony saw the secular tailwinds toward mobile, video and high-speed networks like 5G before most and has been able to capitalize on its vision.  The ability for Digital Turbine to utilize AdColonys unique mobile advertising solutions across our vast device distribution footprint will unlock significant new monetization opportunities for the combined companys platform offerings. 

“With the addition of AdColony, we will expand our collective experience, reach and suite of capabilities to benefit mobile advertisers and publishers around the globe.  Performance-based spending trends by large, established brand advertisers present material upside opportunities for platforms with unique technology deployable across exclusive access to inventory.”

The transaction will be made up of $100m in cash to be paid at closing; $100m in cash to be paid six months after closing; and estimated expected earn-out payment in the range of $150m to $175m, based on AdColony achieving certain targets this year.

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The combination of Cision and Brandwatch will provide brands and organisations with consumer and media intelligence to help create more effective customer engagement strategies.

Cision boasts a database of around 1m journalists and media outlets and more than 75,000 customers, while Brandwatch uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to help brands dig deep into consumer behaviour on social media.

“The continued digital shift and widespread adoption of social media is rapidly and fundamentally changing how brands and organizations engage with their customers,” said Abel Clark, CEO of Cision. “This is driving the imperative that PR, marketing, social and customer care teams fully incorporate the unique insights now available into consumer-led strategies. Together, Cision and Brandwatch will help our clients to more deeply understand, connect and engage with their customers at scale across every channel.”

Giles Palmer, Founder and CEO of Brandwatch, added, “Now is the time to take the next step – joining a company of significant scale to create a business and a suite of products that can have an important global impact. We are excited to join Abel and the Cision team to supercharge our work and bring even more value to our customers.”

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