Gruner + Jahr's Indian arm Networkplay acquires Delhi-based advertising platform yoCAPTCHA

Gruner + Jahr's (the publishing division of European media conglomerate Bertelsmann AG) Indian arm Networkplay has acquired yoCAPTCHA, an advertising platform owned by Innovese Technologies for an undisclosed amount.

Delhi-based yoCAPTCHA was founded in 2011 by BITS-Pilani alumni Ankit Gupta and Dhruv Sogani. Post takeover, both the founders will join the Networkplay team. While Sogani will head business development at Networkplay, Gupta will be the head of technology and will be responsible for developing and buying new technologies. yoCAPTCHA is a CAPTCHA advertising platform that works by transforming difficult-to-read CAPTCHAs into engaging ad units. It claims to have over 100 publishers on board and has served over a billion CAPTCHA impressions. Its clientele includes P&G, Axis Bank, Volkswagen, BlackBerry (RIM), Reliance Communications and Star World.

This is Networkplay's second acquisition in the last 10 months. Last November, the company bought out Smile Vun Group's (SVG) mobile ad network Seventynine. Gruner + Jahr has been on an expansion spree in India. It acquired majority stake in Networkplay in March last year.

(Edited by Joby Puthuparampil Johnson)