Affle acquires mobile app development & ads platform Appstudioz

India and Singapore-based D2C Inc, which operates under the brand name Affle, a mobile apps & ads as a service (MaaS) platform, has acquired Noida-based Appstudioz Technologies Pvt Ltd, the company behind another MaaS platform Appstudioz.

With this acquisition, Appstudioz has now merged with Affle's media lab business and has become a fully-owned subsidiary of Affle's Singapore-based holding firm, Affle Holdings. Along with the acquisition, Affle has announced the setting up of a R&D facility in India to help strengthen its mobile app & ads technology platform.

"We believe that through our integrated approach, we now offer a much greater platform & service to our customers which should help build further growth momentum," said Saurabh Singh, MD and CEO of Appstudioz.

"We have unified our platforms to create the mobile marketing platform catering to advertisers, publishers and agencies. We believe Appstudioz would significantly strengthen our propositions and its team would form the nucleus of our growing R&D facility in India," said Anuj Khanna Sohum, founder, CEO and chairman, Affle.

AppStudioz was founded in May 2011 by Singh, who had earlier worked at companies including XEN GlobalTech, SKAN DbyDx Software Pvt Ltd and BrickRed Technologies. The startup has sales presence in the UK and Australia. The firm claims its platform is used by over 400 customers globally.

In an interview with Techcircle.in recently, Singh said that AppStudioz had touched $1 million in revenues in its first year of operations, and is targeting $4 million in the current financial year (FY14).

Founded in 2006, Affle provides MAAS platform to marketers & publishers. Affle's businesses also include ad2campaign (an integrated mobile attribution, delivery and demand-side platform), and Ripple (a cross-screen mobile-focused monetisation platform). The firm's investors include D2C Japan (a NTT DoCoMo subsidiary), Microsoft Corp, Itochu Corporation of Japan, Bennett Coleman Company Limited (BCCL) & Centurion Private Equity.

Last September, Affle in partnership with Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) had launched M2X Fund, a $3.3 million corpus fund that will be used to invest in brands, publishers, app developers, agencies and startups in the mobile sector.

(Edited by Joby Puthuparampil Johnson)