If you were wondering why Criteo was holding off on its IPO, it may not have just been because the process is very complicated: Criteo announced today the acquisition of Mobile Ad Tracking startup AD-X Tracking. The Ad re-targeting giant has been growing as fast as clients will let them, hailing in 202,100%+ growth in the last 5 years (UPDATE: A type in this sentence previously suggested that the company had achieved said growth in 1 year, instead of 5) – that’s a lot of growth. However, despite their Google-level Ad numbers, the company has one big concern that could shake up its IPO valuation: mobile.
Putting aside the “cookie” issue (the company is entirely reliant on cookies to track users across multiple pages), Criteo has had a gaping hole in its offering when it came to tracking mobile, but now that’s taken care of.
“Criteo is now uniquely positioned as the one-stop display performance partner for both desktop and mobile devices. Our clients are increasingly looking to track the effectiveness of their marketing spend across all platforms, as well as identify the most valuable users of their service across all channels. We can now offer this full intelligence via a sophisticated technology solution across mobile devices.” – JB Rudelle, CEO of Criteo
AD-X’s technology allows agencies to track, monitor and report advertising performance on mobile applications across 100s of advertising solutions worldwide. Now that Criteo has its hands on that, the word “mobile” should be a little less daunting for the AdTech giant.
“Criteo’s proven ability to scale their technology platform across more than 30 countries will benefit AD-X as we look to further develop and increase the efficiency and effectiveness of our solution for all our existing and future customers,” says David Philippson, Managing Director of AD-X at Criteo. “I’m thrilled that AD-X is now part of Criteo and the team will be working with very talented engineers who will continue to pioneer innovative solutions across our platform.”
With 700+ employees (most of which are located in their Paris office, including the technical R&D), Criteo is currently rumored to be looking for between a $1 and $2 Billion valuation, expected to be announced by year’s end.