[Note: This post first appeared on Minnov8.com.]

Ryan (left) and Rob Weber, cofounders of NativeX.

Ryan (left) and Rob Weber, cofounders of NativeX.

Minnesota’s NativeX announced today it is being acquired by Guangzhou-based Mobvista, Asia’s largest mobile advertising company. The company said the all-cash deal is valued at 160 million yuan, or 25 million US dollars. Once the transaction is completed, NativeX will become a subsidiary of Mobvista.

NativeX was founded by Minnesota twin brothers Rob and Ryan Weber and traces its beginnings to a former company they and a third brother, Aaron, founded in St. Cloud more than 15 years ago, called Freeze.com. The firm later changed its name to W3i, then made a major transformation to mobile ad technology in early 2013, rebranding to NativeX. It specializes in monetization and advertising through proprietary native ad technology for mobile games and apps.

Mobvista also has offices in Hong Kong, Beijing, New Delhi, Singapore, and San Francisco. NativeX has offices in St. Cloud (Sartell), Minneapolis, San Francisco, and Finland.

Rob Weber will continue as CEO of NativeX, and serve as a vice president of the Mobvista Group. “We currently have 40 employees in Minnesota,” said Rob, “and we’re planning for all of our current employees to stay on. Also, as part of the growth opportunity presented in light of the merger, we plan to hire additional employees at both our Sartell and Minneapolis locations.”

Rob continued: “Ryan and I are very excited with our new partnership. Strategically, it makes sense to combine forces with a strong force in Eastern markets. We are planning to stay on board in the same roles we have now.”

The full text of the press release follows: 

Mobvista Acquires NativeX Accelerating Global Growth for Mobile Advertising and Monetization

NativeX Native Video Monetization Technology Combined with Mobvista’s Mobile Advertising Market Reach Opens New Revenue Opportunities For Publishers and Advertisers

Guangzhou, Minneapolis, San Francisco, Hong Kong, Beijing, New Delhi, Singapore – March 1, 2016 – Mobvista, Asia’s largest mobile advertising company, announced today that it has acquired NativeX, which specializes in successful monetization and advertising through their innovative native ad technology for mobile games and apps. This includes NativeX’s robust native video advertising platform which includes Lightning Play™ video, offer walls, interstitials and other rich media formats. The deal is valued at 160 million yuan (an all cash transaction of 25 million USD). Once the transaction is completed, NativeX will become a subsidiary of Mobvista. Rob Weber will continue as CEO of NativeX, and serve as Vice President of the Mobvista Group.

Wei Duan, founder & CEO of Mobvista says, “NativeX is a solid, sustainable business and our technology focus and values are perfectly aligned to deliver rich growth opportunities to the mobile market and to further secure Mobvista’s international goals and success, especially to speed up our ability to supply substantial audiences in Western markets. Acquiring NativeX is another key step in realizing our global ad-tech vision to develop a multi-dimensional global ecosystem of mobile traffic.”

Mobvista operates a worldwide mobile ad network, receiving more than 10 billion daily impressions from integrated ad spots and websites across more than 240 countries. Founded in 2013, Mobvista has successfully developed billions of overseas users for thousands of clients. Mobvista has also been instrumental in helping many mobile games achieve significant success in Southeast Asia. In November 2015, the company had a listed market value of more than 6 billion yuan.

Wei continues, “Between Mobvista and NativeX, publishers and advertisers can expect to have the combination of the highest growth categories in mobile marketing including native advertising, video and other innovative ad formats — all with strong data driven technologies.”

NativeX has an audience reach of over 1 billion mobile users and works with more than 1,000 publishers including Yodo1, Square Enix, Fingersoft, MADFINGER Games, Mag Interactive, Outfit 7, and Play With Games, as well as hundreds of top advertisers including Disney, King, Zynga, Rovio, IGG, and Machine Zone.

“We look forward to a successful future as part of the Mobvista family and are exceptionally pleased with the many benefits this acquisition will bring to both our publisher and advertising partners as well as to our employees,” says Robert Weber, CEO and co-founder of NativeX.

“The MobVista acquisition of NativeX allows us to expand the distribution of our native ad technology throughout the world for an even greater international presence. We are excited to bring Mobvista’s leading global demand to NativeX’s monetization partners and it’s strong global supply, especially in APAC, to our advertising partners.

As part of our merger with Mobvista, we will also be expanding our team to take advantage of the large opportunity in front of us.”

About Mobvista 

Mobvista specializes in global mobile advertising and overseas game publishing. As an industry leading mobile advertising platform, Mobvista covers users from more than 240 countries and regions, reaching over 10 billion daily impressions through boosting technology innovation and excellent customized service. It also owns a user database covering over 2 billion devices and 3000+ user targeting labels.

Mobvista ranked No.3, following Facebook and Google AdWords, in the Global Android Power Ranking released in 2016 by AppsFlyer, a leading mobile analytics platform. In AppsFlyer’s gaming and non-gaming performance index released in April and October in 2015, it also ranked top3 for both. Mobvista got listed on NEEQ in 2015, with a market value of around USD 10 billion.

Mobvista has over 300 employees, with global offices in Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Beijing, San Francisco, New Delhi, and Singapore.

Join Mobvista here: http://mobvista.hasoffers.com/

Official Website: http://www.mobvista.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mobvista.official

Twitter: @MobvistaInc

About NativeX

NativeX is the leading native ad technology for mobile apps and games, providing effective user acquisition and smarter mobile app monetization through a wide range of both reward and non-reward rich media ads, including Lightning Play™ video, multi-offer walls, interstitials and other innovative ad formats. A feature-rich SDK which allows publishers to balance their monetization and make a wide range of changes in placements, rewards and ad formats delivered is one of many integration options available to publishers.

NativeX has 12 consecutive years of profitability under its belt and has acquired more than 1 billion users across 178 countries through multi-year partnerships with top app developers

NativeX continues to be recognized as a top User Acquisition and Monetization provider from multiple industry publications including AppsFlyer, MobyAffiliates, VentureBeat and more, with leading publishers and advertisers voting NativeX as “Top 10 Most Effective Monetization Company” and “Top 5 Best Company for User Acquisition.”

With a team of 50 employees in Minnesota, California, and Finland, NativeX headquarters will continue to be based in Minnesota.

Official Website: http://www.nativex.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nativex

Twitter: @nativex