The fall in technical valuations is leading to a number of significant mergers and acquisitions, and the latest development in that area seems to be coming from the gaming world. Unitthe huge platform for developing games and other interactive content, plans to merge with iron sourcea platform for monetizing apps.
The news isn’t official yet, but a source tells us it will be formally announced later in the day. An Ironsource spokesperson did not deny the deal when I contacted the company for comment; she just said she would send me a comment if she could later. We will continue to ask questions and will update this story as we hear more.
The move would bring together two powerhouses in their respective fields: interactive development and app monetization. However, both companies have something else in common: they are publicly traded and have seen their shares fall in recent months, in line with the larger downturn in the technology sector. That leads to pressure from shareholders, on top of the companies’ broader strategies to continue to grow and diversify themselves as companies.
The deal has been described to me as a merger, but one company is definitely bigger than the other. Ironsource’s market cap at the time of writing is: $2.3 billion, but that figure has fallen dramatically in the past six months. Unit, meanwhile, is currently valued at $11.8 billionthough it has similarly weathered a pretty severe financial storm: the stock has lost nearly two-thirds of its value in the past six months.
Pursuing M&A as a route to product and user growth has long been a strategy for larger tech companies, but the last few months have seen a number of mergers and acquisitions among smaller players as well, as funding sources become less free-flowing, performance-oriented. targets are being tightened and valuations are falling.
Both companies are no stranger to this trend. Ironsource’s latest acquisition went smoothly Tapjoy in January for $400 million†Unit in the same month acquired Ziva Dynamics to expand the tools it provides to games and other interactive developers, for an undisclosed amount.
…And as we prepare to publish this story, it seems that the Israeli press – Ironsource is traded in the US but was founded out of Tel Aviv – is also starting report the newsâ€
More to come.