Upland buys Localytics for $67.7M to expand mobile app analytics

Brief:

Upland Software, a maker of cloud-based enterprise work management software, bought Localytics for $67.7 million to expand into mobile app personalization and analytics. The deal will add about $20 million in yearly revenue, according to a company press release.
ESPN, Fox and The New York Times are among the companies that use the Localytics platform, which is integrated with 37,000 apps on more than 2.7 billion devices. Localytics offers insights into consumer behavior in mobile apps, helping marketers to improve conversion and loyalty, per the announcement.
Upland will add Localytics to its Customer Experience Management (CXM) Cloud to provide mobile experiences, personalization and real-time sentiment analysis among digital channels. Localytics is forecast to add about $13.5 million in revenue and $6.8 million in adjusted EBITDA to Upland's 2020 results. The company estimates total revenue of $269.5 million and $281.5 million for the year, per the announcement.

Insight:

Upland's acquisition of Localytics is another sign of consolidation in the ad-tech industry that grew rapidly in the past decade but has faced pressures as changing consumer privacy laws change the way companies collect and share data. Upland didn't disclose the revenue history for Localytics, making it difficult to determine those trends, although the company forecast the acquisition will be accretive to this year's earnings.

The acquisition adds to Upland's existing suite of cloud-based services for app experiences in industry vertical such as telecommunications, media, retail and consumer finance, Jed Alpert, EVP and general manager of CXM Cloud at Upland, said in a statement. Localytics combines geo-based push, in-app notifications and application inbox messaging with data on app usage, location, products viewed and cart abandonment to help marketers improve users' mobile app experiences. That helps to increase conversion while cutting churn among target audiences, per its announcement.

The acquisition of Localytics marks an exit for its founders, who have moved on to start a new company called Demand Sage, TechCrunch reported. The startup aims to provide analytics to small- and medium-sized enterprises that are underserved by software solutions aimed at big companies. Demand Sage is a free product that connects with marketing systems, starting with HubSpot, to auto-generate a live reporting suite in Google Sheets, per a blog post by CEO Raj Aggarwal.

The news comes as media-buying agency Horizon Media last week began testing location verification technology from Location Sciences in an effort to validate all location data for its programmatic operations including media, audience development and measurement.