IronSource continues its Israeli shopping spree: After acquiring companies such as Warranteer, SteamRail, and Supersonic, the Israeli app monetization giant adds another Israeli solution to its local toolkit. This time, it’s SOOMLA- a company that was on the verge of shutting down, until it pivoted to save its life. The full details have yet to be revealed, but according to reports, land in the tens of millions of dollars range.

“A 3-person team, barely getting by”

SOOMLA developed a platform that encourages in-app purchases, by analyzing user behavior over a wide network of games and machine learning algorithms. However, then the mobile revenue landscape changed, with apps turning to advertisement channels for profit. In a 2018 interview with Geektime, CEO and co-founder Yaniv Nizan shared that investors were beginning to pressure. “We realized that we need to pivot. We then noticed that something interesting was going on in the market. We decided to keep the initial idea, but start from scratch. It was back to a 3-person team, barely getting by. With no fancy marketing budget, we went guerilla to secure our first clients.”

SOOMLA’s platform changed and began monitoring app awareness. This opened up a whole chest of relevant and critical insight into each ad’s performance, and how the users reacted to certain messages or campaigns. Back in 2018, the company saved its skin by securing a $2.6 million investment from JAL Ventures, a move that allowed the trio to recruit another 12 employees to its Tel Aviv-based office - all of whom will join the IronSource team.

Through this acquisition, the entire IronSource network will be empowered with deeper insight into their awareness performance. “Our goal is to provide a comprehensive growth platform for mobile app developers... Every developer should be able to access best-in-class technology to better manage their app businesses, and with SOOMLA’s technology, we aim to provide those insights both to apps that use our ad mediation solution and those that don’t,” explains Omer Kaplan, Co-Founder and CRO at IronSource.

“Not an ending, but a new beginning”

In a conversation with Geektime, SOOMLA CEO Yaniv Nizan said that the company has been through thick and thin since it was founded and until the IronSource acquisition: “Boris and I are extremely happy where we landed in the end. It was a long journey and we got a chance to work alongside some very talented people. We could not have succeeded without our investors’ support along the way, and our super talented team helping us push forward. According to Nizan, the whole team worked very hard to make this deal happen: “The acquisition is not an ending, but a new beginning. We plan on recruiting talent to help us further advance our technology. IronSource is one of the Israeli tech ecosystem’s gems and we’re proud to join a winning team.”

SOOMLA was founded in 2012 by Yaniv Nizan, VP R&D Boris Spektor, and COO Rafael Decker.