Airpush is said to be talking with Perion so that it can be bought by the Tel-Aviv based company, TechCrunch reported citing someone outside the firm who did not have access to the information. The tech website also said that other sources have confirmed the transaction is going on and that they have talked to Airpush about the unauthorized access without stating who their sources were. TechCrunch reported that the price tag for the deal is pegged at around $170 million.
Airpush is a mobile ad platform while Perion is a digital consumer brand maker which recently joined forces with Israel internet firm Conduit. Founded in 2005, Conduit became the biggest Internet firm in Israel at one time because of its community toolbar innovation. However, in a case of "a reverse takeover of sorts," as the TechCrunch report called it, Conduit split itself in two and ultimately assumed the Nasdaq listing of Perion. As a result of the merger, the ClientConnect toolbar business and workers of Conduit were integrated to Perion.
Before the merger, Perion expected earnings of only $20.1 million and revenues of $104.6 million. However, profits went up in the $103 million to $108 million range and revenues of anywhere from $460 million to $470 million, the report said.
Perion has marketed itself as a consumer-oriented software firm. However, TechCrunch reported that it may now looking at on putting more focus on its B2B solutions portfolio, such as analytics, tools that could monetize websites and apps and its affiliate program. One example of this move is the reassigning of developers who were tasked with Perion's email app Molto to tackle other projects, the report said.
If this is the case, the acquisition of AirPush would be compatible with the other B2B tools of Perion. This is because AirPush has used a wide range of ad formats like push notifications and video, just to name two, to become a platform for monetizing mobile applications.
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