Antoine Moreau, CEO of OLAmobile: “With IconPeak and BidderPlace we acquire two of the fastest growing performance-based advertising networks in Europe. The growth trajectory of both companies has been highly impressive in the past years. Gunnar, Felipe and the rest of the teams have built two successful and profitable companies and we are now looking forward to join forces to become the global market leader in the mobile performance marketing space.”
Gunnar Kämpgen, Founder and CEO of IconPeak and BidderPlace: “OLAmobile’s great reputation, their existing infrastructure with many offices across the globe and their industry knowledge will allow us to fuel our growth in existing and new markets. With our complementary business models we look forward to leveraging synergies, increasing our revenues and building a very powerful platform in the mobile performance marketing industry.”
Friedrich A. Neuman, Founder and CEO of MAKERS adds: “We are very happy with these two exits after four years of close collaboration with the companies. IconPeak’s and BidderPlace’s acquisition proves that our hands-on approach and our focus on profitability pays off in the long-run. With OLAmobile we found the perfect strategic partner to bring IconPeak and BidderPlace to the next level in the advertising space. A big compliment to Gunnar, Felipe and both teams for bootstrapping and building two truly great companies.”
OLAmobile is taking over IconPeak and BidderPlace at just the right time. According to a study by IAB Europe, the IAB and IHS Markit, mobile advertising revenues increased by 60.5% to €63bn ($83bn) in 2016 from €39bn ($52bn) in 2015 and are expected to continue growing with the help of improving marketing technologies. This is also reflected in a shift in ad spendings. Budgets for digital media are rising while marketing spendings for traditional media such as TV, print and radio are decreasing significantly. According to eMarketer, mobile advertising spendings alone are going to account ⅓ of all ad spendings by 2020.