Mobile advertising platform LoopMe has been valued at almost £150 million in a private equity takeover.
Mayfair Equity Partners has invested £87m for a majority stake to accelerate international growth at the London business.
LoopMe estimates gross revenues of nearly $100 million for 2021, having achieved revenue growth of around 50% a year over the past three years, with the majority of revenues now coming from the United States.
Founded in 2012, LoopMe has applied artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies into the mobile advertising sector to optimise media campaign delivery in real-time.
Through its outcomes-based technology platform, LoopMe says it drives both measurable uplift in brand deliverables and more effective targeting across online and offline marketing goals, including brand uplift, purchase intent, consideration, footfall and sales.
Its services are currently available across mobile, connected TV, digital audio, digital out-of-home and other emerging digital advertising channels.
The company’s clients include dentsu, Publicis, WPP, Omnicom, Pepsi, Microsoft, Sony Pictures, Hyundai/Kia and WarnerMedia.
“LoopMe has experienced phenomenal growth over the past 10 years, particularly in the US, within the mobile video app ecosystem and now in CTV,” said Stephen Upstone, CEO and founder.
“As a leading data and privacy-compliant software platform delivering exceptional performance without the need for personal identifying data, LoopMe is poised for continued success given ongoing market developments with regards to data regulation and usage.
“We are excited to welcome the support of Mayfair Equity Partners as we expand into new geographies and add new product offerings around data and measurement.”
The firm’s existing institutional investors include BGF.
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Mayfair’s other digital media investments include Talon Outdoor, an out-of-home specialist media agency, and kids’ digital media platform SuperAwesome.
It is also a shareholder in a number of fast-growing unicorns such as Epic Games (the developer of Fortnite and the Unreal Engine), OVO Group (a tech-enabled energy solutions provider) and Graphcore (a pioneering developer of AI accelerators).
“Over the last decade the mobile brand-based advertising market has undergone a period of rapid growth, expanding to over $8 billion in size. This is a very dynamic part of the AdTech ecosystem, which is supported by increasing handset penetration and the desire for personalised digital content,” said managing partner Daniel Sasaki.
“We have long been impressed with LoopMe’s strong growth and market leadership, and we see significant opportunity to continue that trajectory by supporting their mobile in-app and CTV capabilities.”