The Strategist

Mobile app developer AppLovin valued at $28.6bn in IPO



04/16/2021 - 04:37



US mobile game and app developer AppLovin has raised $2bn in its IPO, with shares selling at $80, in the middle of an earlier price range of $75 to $85 per share. AppLovin will begin trading on NASDAQ today, April 15, under the ticker APP.



AppLovin, founded in 2012, began as a developer of marketing tools for mobile game creators. Since then, the company has expanded its scope, now working on games themselves, mobile advertising in games and other tools in the field. Among its biggest investors is investment fund KKR, which invested $400m in the company in 2018, valuing AppLovin as a whole at $2bn at the time. AppLovin itself has made several acquisitions over the past few years, including game developers Machine Zone, Magic Tavern and Peoplefun, as well as app analytics company Adjust and advertising tools company SafeDK.

The platform, developed by AppLovin, hosts more than 200 mobile games; the company says it has 420 million daily active users. AppLovin ended last year with a loss of $125m (it had a profit in 2019); revenue rose 46% to $1.5bn.

This is the next IPO among mobile games companies in the last year - previously the game platform Roblox, game and game engine developer Unity Software and Israeli mobile game developer Playtika all conducted IPOs. Research firm SensorTower estimates that the mobile games market will grow 26% to $79.6bn in 2020.

source: bloomberg.com




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