Opera is initially shelling out approximately US$8 million in cash for the privately owned startup and an additional US$15 million if certain financial targets are met during the next two years, according to a filing with the Oslo Børs.
Opera has already been employing AdMarvel’s application suite when experimenting with mobile advertising on its Mini browser and was deeply influenced with the results, according to Rolf Assev, chief strategy officer at Opera.
AdMarvel’s product suite contains a number of management and analytics tools for mobile ad publishers. The Traffic Manager tool gives users control where and to what devices ads are sent, and the Traffic Analytics tool breaks down traffic by countries, devices and carriers, according to AdMarvel’s web site.
AdMarvel, a San Mateo, Calif.-based startup, founded in 2006, enables publishers and carriers to source, manage and track advertising from virtually any ad network, according to the company.
The company operates with a wide range of mobile publishers, developers, carriers, ad networks, agencies and advertisers to optimize advertising inventory and revenue.
Also, the company last year introduced an iPhone advertising toolkit built to help app developers to combine ads from ad networks into their applications. Its services work across mobile web, WAP, SMS and in-application modalities.
Its products are “configured to put publishers, developers and mobile operators in control of performance and enables ad networks, agencies and brands to deliver better results,” Opera said.
The company has recently witnessed tremendous success with Opera Mini, a mobile browser configured primarily to format web content for mass-market handsets.
In our rapidly-expanding industry, mobile advertising constitutes an interesting long-term revenue opportunity. Every month, nearly 50 million people access the Web using Opera on their mobile phones and along with AdMarvel, we think we can play an important role in the evolution of mobile advertising, says Lars Boilesen, who was recently promoted to Chief Executive Officer at Opera.
Opera says that the acquisition of AdMarvel will enable it to “expand its portfolio of products and services” to include ad monetization services for Opera-branded mobile products offered by operators and content partners.
AdMarvel, formerly named Frengo, the startup was founded by CEO Mahi de Silva (ex-VeriSign and Apple) together with a number of other former VeriSign executives and has reportedly raised $8 million in funding over the years from investors like Index Ventures, Khosla Ventures and Trilogy Equity Partnership.
“What commenced as a commercial relationship has blossomed into a wonderful partnership to serve the global mobile marketplace,” said de Silva. “Combining our monetization and analytics platform with the Opera browser and widget platform will create a new intelligent platform, where local and global advertisers can interact with a highly instrumented mobile audience.”
The acquisition is just the latest in a string of ad network acquisitions. The mobile ad sector has been witnessing a lot of activities in recent months, and earlier this month, Apple scooped up Quattro Wireless, which serves ads in more than 100 countries and has partners that include the NHL, NFL and the Gawker network, among others, while Google acquired AdMob last November.
It is a rapidly growing sector, according to Gartner. For example, 25 percent of application store income will be generated from advertising in 2013, compared to 5 percent last year, said Carolina Milanesi, research director at Gartner.
The biggest goal will be to deliver ads in a way that does not irritate users, Assev said. It will also be essential to take advantage of the user’s location.
AdMarvel will continue to be function as an independent company, according to Assev. However, Opera will work to discover ways to integrate AdMarvel’s products with Opera Mini for operator offerings, he said.