September 11, 2013

Twitter buys Mopub in its largest technology acquisition yet

In the latest technology merger and acquisition news, Twitter made its largest acquisition yet when it recently purchased the mobile advertising company Mopub for a reported $350 million. Ideally, the move will help Twitter keep better track of its ad inventory on an up-to-the-minute basis.

TechCrunch said in a recent article that there were several buyers that were interested in Mopub, including the ad network Millennial Media.

AllThingsD is one of several news sources that is comparing the deal to when Google acquired DoubleClick. Twitter will better be able to offer the right ad space at the right time to third-party publishers.

According to Revenue Product VP Kevin Weil, the move follows current industry trends, such as a massive shift to mobile devices happening on the consumer side. Additionally, Weil told AllThingsD that the move represents a shift toward programmatic buying on the ad side. By acquiring Mopub, Twitter is gaining real time bidding technology—something it has thus far lacked.

Mopub CEO Jim Payne wrote a post on the company blog further explaining the technology acquisition. According to Payne, he is excited to "join the flock" with Twitter and continue building quality content for publishers.

"In addition to investing in new capabilities for our publisher platform, we believe there are opportunities to bring better native advertising to the mobile ecosystem," Payne wrote. "With the support of the team and resources of Twitter, we'll be able to move even more quickly towards the realization of our original vision."

Payne added that Mopub's commitment to its customers will not change. Twitter is simply bringing financial stability and will further help Mopub build the tools and technology that mobile advertising businesses need.