IronSource
ironSource Ltd. was an Israeli software company that focused on developing technologies for app monetization and distribution, with its core products focused on the app economy. Among others, ironSource was chosen as one of the '20 hottest startups' in 2013 and was listed in the Wall Street Journal "Billion Dollar Startup Club". In September 2015, ironSource was named by the World Economic Forum as a Global Growth Company. ironSource was also named one of the hottest pre-IPO tech companies by Business Insider, and one of Israel's most innovative companies by Fast Company. IronSource also received criticism for having a history of distributing malware. ironSource had over 1,000 employees, with more than half dedicated to research and development. Headquartered in Tel Aviv, ironSource also maintained offices in New York, San Francisco, London, Beijing, Shenzhen, Tokyo, and Seoul.
 | |
| Company type | Division |
|---|---|
| Industry | |
| Founded | 2010 |
| Founder | Tomer Bar-Zeev |
| Fate | Acquired by Unity |
| Headquarters | , Israel |
Number of locations | 12 |
Key people | Tomer Bar-Zeev (CEO & chairman)[1]: 79 |
| Revenue |  US$553 million (2021) |
| US$82.4 million (2021) | |
 US$59.8 million (2021) | |
| Total assets | US$1.45 billion (2021) |
| Total equity | US$1.10 billion (2021) |
Number of employees | 1,121 (December 2021) |
| Parent | Unity |
| Subsidiaries |
|
| Website | www.is.com |
| Footnotes / references [1] | |
ironSource Ltd. was an Israeli software company that focused on developing technologies for app monetization and distribution, with its core products focused on the app economy.[2][3]
Among others, ironSource was chosen as one of the '20 hottest startups' in 2013 and was listed in the Wall Street Journal "Billion Dollar Startup Club".[4][5] In September 2015, ironSource was named by the World Economic Forum as a Global Growth Company.[6] ironSource was also named one of the hottest pre-IPO tech companies by Business Insider, and one of Israel's most innovative companies by Fast Company.[7][8][9] IronSource also received criticism for having a history of distributing malware.[10]
ironSource had over 1,000 employees, with more than half dedicated to research and development. Headquartered in Tel Aviv, ironSource also maintained offices in New York, San Francisco, London, Beijing, Shenzhen, Tokyo, and Seoul.
History
[edit]Founded in 2010 in Tel Aviv, ironSource provided platforms and tools for application developers including analytics, user monetization, conversion, acquisition and optimization for all devices.[11][12]
In the first quarter of 2013, ironSource acquired Israeli advertising technology and network company AfterDownload Ltd. for $28 million to expand its integrated distribution, installation and value-building tools for software developers, publishers and advertisers.[13]
In August 2013, Ironsource announced merger talks with advertising company Babylon,[14][15][16] but the deal was called off after Babylon lost high-value contracts with Google and Yahoo due to violations.[17][9]
In 2013, IronSource purchased browser add-on startup DealPly.[18]
Also in August 2013, ironSource opened an office in San Francisco.[19] In May 2014, they opened an office in Beijing, China.[20] In April 2015, ironSource opened an office in the United Kingdom.[21]
In Fall 2014, ironSource raised approximately $85 million from a group of international investors and acquired the mobile game studio Upopa.[22][23] At this time, IronSource was considered a key company in Israel's 'Download Valley'.[24][25]
In September 2015, ironSource merged Supersonic into its mobile operation for a price estimated to be $200 million. The new organization rebranded itself as ironSource.[26][27][28][29]
In June 2016, ironSource announced the acquisition of Sequoia-backed video technology company StreamRail.[30]
In August 2017, ironSource was reported to be "in advanced talks" to be bought for $1.8 billion by a consortium of investment funds.[31][32][9]
In October 2019, CVC Capital Partners acquired a minority stake in ironSource for over $400 million.[33]
In February 2020, ironSource announced the launch of its new mobile game studio, Supersonic Studios. Within a couple of months, Supersonic Studios "scored three games in the top 10 mobile charts", with their games amassing more than 35 million downloads.[34][35][36]
In January 2021, ironSource acquired mobile advertisement quality measurement company Soomla.[14]
In February 2021, ironSource acquired Luna Labs, the creative management platform and creator of mobile advertisement creation tools like Luna Playable and Luna Replay.[37]
On June 29, 2021, ironSource went public via a merger with an SPAC backed by private equity firm Thoma Bravo Advantage.[38]
In July 2022, Unity Technologies agreed to buy ironSource in an all-stock deal worth US$4.4 billion.[39] On completion of the deal, Unity shareholders owned about 73.5% of the combined company, and former ironSource shareholders kept about 26.5%.[40] The deal was met with criticism from game developers due to ironSource's affiliation with malware.[10] Unity completed the buyout in November 2022.[41]
InstallCore Malware
[edit]In February 2011, the company released its first product, InstallCore, as an open-source SDK[42][43][44] for a cross-platform installer creation tool and advertisement-delivery platform. InstallCore was observed to use stealth techniques to avoid observation by anti-virus and other security software, and to bypass validation checks by signing programs with illegitimate security certificates.[45] This was classified as a Potentially Unwanted Application by Sophos in 2014[46] and by Microsoft Essential in 2015,[47] with Malwarebytes identifying the program as "a family of bundlers that installs more than one application on the user's computer".[48] The product was discontinued in 2020 and was no longer supported by the company.[49]
Applications
[edit]In September 2014, ironSource acquired gaming company Upopa.[50][51]
ironSource was one of the first mobile SDK providers to support augmented reality advertisements for game developers.[52][53]
On October 3, 2018, ironSource released an advertisement revenue measurement tool that allowed developers to measure the effectiveness of advertisement campaigns aligned with other similar tools used amongst developers as a means of evaluating return on advertisement spend (ROAS).[54][55]
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ a b "ironSource Ltd. 2021 Annual Report (Form 20-F)". U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. 30 March 2022.
- ^ "Newzoo Gametech Ecosystem Map". Newzoo. Retrieved 2020-06-15.
- ^ "PCMag App Economy". PCMag.
- ^ Garcia Phillips, Andrew. "The Billion-Dollar Startup Club". Wall Street Journal.
- ^ "The 20 Hottest Startups In Israel - Business Insider". Business Insider. Retrieved 2013-07-22.
- ^ "World Economic Forum Honours 132 Companies as Global Growth Companies". World Economic Forum. Retrieved 2016-08-21.
- ^ "RANKED: The 37 hottest pre-IPO ad tech startups of 2016". Business Insider. Retrieved 2017-03-14.
- ^ "The Most Innovative Companies of 2016 by Sector". Fast Company. Retrieved 2017-03-14.
- ^ a b c ironSource: We're one of the sexiest companies in Israel - Globes.co.il, 30 October 2014
- ^ a b Troughton, James (14 July 2022). "Unity Criticised For Merging With Known Malware Distributor". TheGamer. Retrieved 15 July 2022.
- ^ "Access Industries Completes $25 Million Investment in ironSource. Initial Round Expanded to Officially Close at over $100 Million". www.ironsrc.com. Retrieved 2018-10-09.
- ^ "'How to build a bottom-up culture through a massive employee growth (feat. Tomar Bar Ze'ev, CEO at ironSource)'". Startup Camel. Archived from the original on January 21, 2015. Retrieved 25 Jan 2015.
- ^ "ironSource acquires AfterDownload for $28m - Globes". 20 February 2013. Retrieved 20 February 2013.
- ^ a b Takahashi, Dean (January 11, 2021). "IronSource acquires ad measurement firm Soomla". VentureBeat.
- ^ Babylon in merger talks with IronSource ahead of possible Nasdaq listing - Haaretz, 13 August 2013
- ^ Babylon merger would leave IronSource’s four founders with NIS 2b - Haaretz, 29 August 2013
- ^ Big trouble for Babylon as its rivers of money dry up - Haaretz, 3 November 2013. "Yahoo issued the Israeli company a severe warning that it was considering terminating the contract due to violations by Babylon. Yahoo management asserted that Babylon had inserted ads into Yahoo pages without permission by means of its software-distribution system and had also permitted "click fraud" to fictitiously inflate the traffic count that forms the basis for referral income.
- ^ "2 - ironSource: We're one of the sexiest companies in Israel - Globes". en.globes.co.il. 2014-10-30. Retrieved 2025-10-04.
- ^ "ironSource Opens Office in San Francisco to Better Serve US Market". PRWeb.
- ^ Gat, Aviva (June 3, 2014). "Israeli company ironSource follows Bibi's lead and looks to collaborate with China". Geektime. Archived from the original on June 10, 2014. Retrieved June 15, 2014.
- ^ Maytom, Tim (April 30, 2015). "Digital Distribution Firm ironSource Opens UK Offices". Mobile Marketing Magazine. Retrieved May 28, 2015.
- ^ Webber, Harrison (23 September 2014). "Ad delivery and software distribution startup IronSource nabs $85M". Venture Beat.
- ^ "Israel's ironSource buys mobile game studio Upopa". Reuters. 4 September 2014. Archived from the original on February 12, 2016.
- ^ "Israeli IronSource Raises $85-100 Million From Ten Investors" Jewish Business News, Ilan Shavit, August 11, 2014
- ^ "Hate Pop-Up Ads? Microsoft tries drawing line in the sand" Wall Street Journal, Orr Hirschauge, June 4, 2014
- ^ "Supersonic merges into ironSource to provide unified app advertising solution". mobyaffiliates. 2016-06-30. Retrieved 2017-03-14.
- ^ "ironSource merges with supersonic in mobile ad consolidation play". 10 September 2015.
- ^ "Following Merger, Supersonic and ironSource Share Name - Mobile Advertising News & Information | MobileAdvertisingWatch.com". 2016-06-30. Archived from the original on 2016-08-28. Retrieved 2016-08-21.
- ^ "After IronSource merger, Supersonic unveils combined ad monetization for mobile apps". VentureBeat. 15 March 2016. Retrieved 2016-08-21.
- ^ Orpaz, Inbal (June 29, 2016). "IronSource Buys Israeli Startup StreamRail". Haaretz. Retrieved November 20, 2020.
- ^ Biggest Internet Firm in Sale Talks
- ^ Big trouble for Babylon as its rivers of money dry up - Haaretz, 3 November 2013. "Yahoo issued a severe warning to Babylon that it was considering terminating the contract due to violations by Babylon. Yahoo management asserted that Babylon had inserted ads into Yahoo pages without permission by means of its software-distribution system and had also permitted "click fraud" to fictitiously inflate the traffic count that forms the basis for referral income.
- ^ Hazani, Golan (2019-10-02). "CVC to Pay $450 Million for a 25% Stake in IronSource". CTECH - www.calcalistech.com. Retrieved 2020-01-13.
- ^ "IronSource launches ad-based game studio Supersonic Games". VentureBeat. 2020-02-10. Retrieved 2020-02-17.
- ^ "Supersonic Games scores three hypercasual mobile games in the top 10". VentureBeat. 2020-04-10. Retrieved 2020-04-16.
- ^ Forde, Matthew; Writer, Staff. "PGC Digital: Supersonic Studios' three newest releases have surpassed 35 million downloads". pocketgamer.biz. Retrieved 2020-04-16.
- ^ Ha, Anthony (February 23, 2021). "IronSource acquires video and playable ad platform Luna Labs". TechCrunch.
- ^ Hu, Krystal (29 June 2021). "Israel's ironSource trades in New York after $11 billion SPAC merger". Reuters. Retrieved 30 June 2021.
- ^ Needleman, Sarah (13 July 2022). "Unity Agrees to Buy ironSource in $4.4 Billion Videogame Deal". The Wall Street Journal.
{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link) - ^ Yang, Lily (13 July 2022). "Unity shares down 13% on lowered 2022 guidance, merger agreement with IronSource". CNBC.
- ^ Sawers, Paul (7 November 2022). "Unity and IronSource's $4.4B merger is now complete". TechCrunch.
- ^ "Historical installer SDK Source and documantation". Wayback Machine. Archived from the original on 18 June 2011. Retrieved 16 June 2011.
- ^ "ironSource's installCore launches Mac OS installer to offer comprehensive, cross-platform solution for developers". Software Developer Times. 25 November 2014. Retrieved 25 November 2014.
- ^ InstallCore SDK documentation
- ^ "Mac Adware Trojan Can Install Anything on OS X". 20 May 2015.
- ^ Detailed Analysis - Sophos, 8 Dec 2014
- ^ PUA:Win32/InstallCore - Windows, Mar 11 2015
- ^ "Adware.InstallCore". Malwarebytes Labs. Retrieved 15 July 2022.
- ^ Gilead, Assaf (29 June 2021). "Giving up its cash cow paved ironSource's way to NYSE". Globes.
- ^ "Israel's ironSource buys mobile game studio Upopa". Reuters. 2017-09-04. Retrieved 2017-04-23.
- ^ "ironSource acquires gaming co Upopa - Globes English". Globes (in Hebrew). 4 September 2014. Retrieved 2017-04-23.
- ^ Stewart, Rogers. "IronSource launches 'world's first' AR ads for mobile games". Venturebeat. Retrieved 2017-09-28.
- ^ "ironSource Launches AR Ads for Mobile AAA Games". PRWeb. Retrieved 2017-11-17.
- ^ "What is ROAS? Calculating Return On Ad Spend". HuffPost. 9 February 2017.
- ^ "How to measure ad channel effectiveness".
External links
[edit]- Official website
- Historical business data for IronSource:
- SEC filings