Amobee beefs up Singtel’s digital ads division by buying ad tech firm Turn

Singtel’s ad tech division, Amobee, said Wednesday night it has agreed to buy ad tech firm Turn for $310 million.

Amobee, which was purchased by Singtel in 2012, was originally focused on mobile ad solutions.

By buying Turn, it adds an omnichannel demand side platform and data management platform. The purchase also boosts efforts by Singtel, Singapore’s largest carrier, to move beyond its subscriber base in southeast Asia, into North America and Europe.

The acquisition, the companies said, will result in one of the largest end-to-end ad and data management platforms with access to all channels, formats and devices. The deal is expected to be completed within the first half of this year.

In a post on his company’s blog about the acquisition, Turn CEO Bruce Falck wrote:

Turn was an early leader in the industry, beginning as an ad network and pivoting from a DSP into what is today: an omnichannel DSP, data management platform and analytics provider working with top global brands and agencies.

… Together with Amobee, we have full programmatic buying capabilities across all channels that complement our omnichannel offering. For example, we will integrate social media channels including Pinterest and Snapchat into our omnichannel DSP.

The Amobee Brand Intelligence real-time consumer insights platform, cookie-less identification technology, and deterministic device graph will be integrated with the Turn DMP, offering brands unprecedented insights about their consumers. Through Singtel’s global operator relationships, we’ll also gain exclusive access to cross-device data.

“We also have a strategic differentiation with the support of Singtel,” Falck told me via email. He added that the telco “has already invested a billion dollars in Amobee’s marketing technology platform, and we have joined forces with a highly-complementary (products, people, strategy) global entity that will invest in the build out of Turn Marketing Platform at a greater rate than if Turn remained a standalone business.”

The Turn purchase is the latest to beef up Singtel’s digital ad capabilities by adding tech and data tools as well as additional markets. In 2013, Amobee bought mobile real-time bidding platform Gradient X. In 2014, it picked up ad solutions firms Adconion Media and Kontera Tech.

[Article on MarTech Today.]

About The Author

Barry Levine

Barry Levine covers marketing technology for Third Door Media. Previously, he covered this space as a Senior Writer for VentureBeat, and he has written about these and other tech subjects for such publications as CMSWire and NewsFactor. He founded and led the web site/unit at PBS station Thirteen/WNET; worked as an online Senior Producer/writer for Viacom; created a successful interactive game, PLAY IT BY EAR: The First CD Game; founded and led an independent film showcase, CENTER SCREEN, based at Harvard and M.I.T.; and served over five years as a consultant to the M.I.T. Media Lab. You can find him at LinkedIn, and on Twitter at xBarryLevine.