HitFox expands its reach into mobile monetization in deals with Datamonk and Apploop

Berlin’s HitFox Group is driving deeper into mobile monetization with the acquisition of mobile targeting platform Datamonk and a $1.3 million investment in mobile user acquisition platform Apploop.

The deals show that HitFox Group, which announced a $20.6 million profit for 2013 last week, continues to be aggressive in figuring out how to make money with mobile games and apps.

Datamonk is a “big data” firm with a team of 12 headed by Sebastian Sujka. It helps advertisers reach specific audiences in a large and automated fashion. Founded in 2011, it provides data that can be used to make decisions about which users to target and analyzes over 1 trillion data points on more than a million apps. Datamonk can segment data for several hundred million mobile devices, providing info such as age, gender, and behavioral usage patterns. That data is useful for real-time bidding exchanges, which automate mobile ads.

“Today, only 10 percent of mobile ads are served through real-time bidding exchanges — three years from now, it will be about 50 percent. We initially got to value Datamonk’s performance and potential in this market as one of their customers. With Datamonk joining the group, we are now excited to be at the forefront of this development,” says Jan Beckers, the CEO and founder of HitFox Group.

Apploop helps mobile apps get new users by optimizing their lifetime value. It focuses on non-gaming apps and can offer a guaranteed cost per install, or ads where the advertiser pays once a user downloads an app.

“The mobile ad industry is still only at the beginning of a decade of massive growth. While games still dominate the mobile performance advertising market, 2014 will be the year where non-gaming apps will start to unfold their full potential,” said Tim Koschella, the chief operating officer and founder of the HitFox Group. “Apploop can draw on the vast technology, network, and expertise developed by [HitFox’s] AppLift while shaping their own vision of a performance-based app distribution platform.”

Apploop was incubated by HitFox Group, Stefan Benndorf, and Hugo Gersanois with a $1.35 million seed investment in 2013. It launched in January. The company now generates mid-six-figure monthly revenues with campaigns in 50 countries for 30 advertisers.

Hitfox plans to co-found or acquire two to four additional companies this year.