Malaysia's Axiata Group buys Komli Media's Southeast Asia business for $11.25M

A unit of Malaysian telecommunication giant Axiata Group has acquired the Southeast Asian operations of Mumbai-based digital media technology company Komli Media for $11.25 million.

In a regulatory filing, Axiata said its arm Adknowledge Asia Pacific Pte Ltd has entered into a sale and purchase agreement to acquire Komli's operations in Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia and Hong Kong.

"Adknowledge Asia and Komli have entered into an agreement designed to greatly benefit each company. While there are some details to be resolved, we expect the agreement to be finalised in the coming weeks," Amar Goel, CEO and chairman of Komli Media, told Techcircle.in.

Axiata, which has presence in India through its 19 cent stake in telecom operator Idea Cellular, said the acquisition enables it to "skip past the formative stage of its business plan and scale up its presence and operations in the Southeast Asian region."

"Komli Asia Group brings with it geographically diversified revenues and provides a strong strategic fit across digital advertising verticals, such as social, video, display and mobile. It also brings in a talent base of more than 100 sales, ad-ops and other personnel with strong reputation in the region, with deeply entrenched relationships with premium publishers and advertisers," Axiata said in a statement.

Adknowledge is an 80 per cent subsidiary of Axiata Digital Advertising Sdn Bhd, a wholly owned unit of Axiata Digital Services Sdn Bhd, which in turn is a wholly owned subsidiary of Axiata Group.

Komli is an ad tech company that offers solutions across display, mobile, video, social, search and data for advertisers, agencies and publishers. Its offerings include a real-time-bidding (RTB) performance advertising platform called ATOM that integrates audience data to improve return on investment.

Headquartered in Mumbai, the company has over 300 employees across 12 offices in India, Australia, New Zealand and Southeast Asia.

Founded by Goel and Akshay Garg in 2006, Komli counts Norwest Venture Partners, Nexus Venture Partners, Helion Venture Partners, Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Peepul Capital as investors.

Komli had made several acquisitions in the past, including that of Indoor Media, ZestAdz, Admax, Postclick and Aktiv Digital, in addition to taking over Jivox's video advertising business in Asia Pacific in 2012. It also had acquired the mandate for selling Twitter promoted products in India and Southeast Asia, Facebook's premium advertising products and Zynga's display ad and video inventory in India.