Singtel's Amobee to acquire Turn

Singtel-owned Amobee has announced it will acquire DMP (data-management platform) and DSP (demand-side platform) company Turn to form what it calls "one of the largest, independent, end-to-end" buy-side platforms, providing access to all programmatic channels, formats and devices.

The acquisition, subject to regulatory approvals and expected to be completed during the first half of the year, values Silicon Valley-based Turn at US$310 million. Singtel said the purchase brings its total investment in Amobee to more than $1 billion. 

Turn will strengthen Amobee's data, analytics and media-buying capabilities to help brands and agencies plan and buy media for specific audiences in a more integrated way, maximizing their investments across desktop, mobile, video and social media, the company said.

“Turn has one of the most advanced DSP and DMPs in the industry, which will evolve Amobee’s technology stack, complementing our existing Amobee Brand Intelligence powered platform, and enable us to best serve advertisers with the most scalable and efficient programmatic, cross-channel and cross-device solutions,” Robert Woolfrey, Amobee SVP for Asia, said in a statement.

The acquisition accelerates Amobee's growth into a significant global digital marketing player, said Samba Natarajan, Singtel’s CEO of Group Digital Life. "It will also prime Amobee for expansion beyond the US and into the Asia Pacific, where the Singtel Group reaches some 640 million customers across 22 countries,” Natarajan added.

Robert Woolfrey

Singtel acquired Amobee in 2012 for $321 million, and added Adconion and Kontera for $235 million and US$150 million, respectively, in 2014.

In blog post, Turn CEO Bruce Falck said the combined team will have more than 800 people "focused on growing what we have built to date", including more than 200 people in product development.

"The ad tech space is not without its challenges," he added. "However, we uniquely have the opportunity to grow and build an even more exciting and valuable company for our customers, investors and employees. It’s early days in programmatic, so think of this as day two, the day we built an unstoppable platform to provide the world’s marketers with their one source of truth."