SingTel's Amobee digital ad business buys Kontera & Adconion for $359M

Singapore Telecommunications’ digital advertising company Amobee said today it will buy content marketing startup Kontera as well as cross-channel advertising company Adconion.

The deal will cost around $359 million, according to a statement on the news.

Amobee already can handle programmatic advertising for digital and mobile ads. It can display three-dimensional mobile ads on Android and iOS devices, and it also offers an analytics tool. It claims to allow for the delivery of ads to 1.4 billion people on mobile devices by way of more than 1,000 ad networks and ad publishers.

Amobee will gain display, video, email, and social advertising capability from Adconion. And the Kontera buy means Amobee will obtain cross-platform data analytics and native advertising savvy. Kontera serves up ads in the form of double-underlined words in articles, and it shows the popularity of certain terms in social media.

“Together with Amobee’s advanced digital marketing technology and solutions, we will create relevant and innovative marketing campaigns across multiple channels for brands and advertisers,” Amobee chairman Allen Lew said in a prepared statement. “These acquisitions will further differentiate Amobee and help solidify its position in the digital advertising market.”

Singapore Telecommunications, better known as SingTel, sells mobile phones, call plans, and Internet access. It bought Amobee in 2012.

Kontera started in 2003. It announced a $15.5 million funding round in 2009. Investors include Carmel Ventures, Sequoia Capital, and Tenaya Capital.

The Adconion part of the deal brings together Adconion Direct North America and Adconion Australia. The Adconion Media Group, which includes Adconion Direct, raised $80 million in 2008. Investors include Index Ventures and Wellington Partners.

At one point we’d heard News Corp. was in negotiations over an Adconion acquisition. But that deal never happened.