Minnov8

Showcasing Minnesota Technology Innovation

DocuMNtary Debuts Sept. 22nd

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documntaryDocuMNtary: The Story of TECH in Minnesota, will be released right after the upcoming Minnesota Cup event on September 22, 2016 and tickets are available now.

Knowing many of the people in the film, hearing them enthusiastically discuss the experience, and my own watching of the trailer a few times, this documentary is undoubtedly going to have a big, positive impact on Minnesota’s tech scene.

nick-ericThe documentary team is comprised of producer Nick Roseth and videographer Eric Jenson, two accomplished techies who have all the requisite skills to make this film one worth watching and for promoting to everyone you know OUTSIDE of Minnesota who is relatively clueless about the tech scene here. Their about page is here which will give you a synopsis of their motivation, focus, objective and how the film itself is structured:

  • We have an incredible community, we are growing, we need tech talent, and we don’t do a very good job of telling our story. 
  • DocuMNtary is a project to build awareness of technology in Minnesota by telling our story through a documentary series.
  • The project objective is to help Minnesota become a top 5 tech community by retaining and attracting top technology talent.
  • DocuMNtary will be distributed primarily as a web experience along with other channel partners such as public television. The web experience allows us to ensure that this story is available to all people and organizations in Minnesota and beyond.
  • The series consists of the 30-minute high-level story, and individual 5-10 minute stories from specific people, companies, industries, or other components of our ecosystem. The documentary format allows us to tell the world not only about our great community, innovation, and company stories, but also gives us opportunity to talk about our great music scene, values, outdoor life, culinary wonders, and a booming craft beer industry to name just a few things that make Minnesota what it is.

The Trailer

When Will It Be Released?

Join community leaders, technologists, and many others to celebrate and advocate our tech community.

WHEN: 

WHERE: McNamara Alumni Center, University of Minnesota Campus – 200 Southeast Oak Street, Minneapolis, MN 55455 – View Map

How Do I Get a Ticket?

Register Here

 

DocuMNtary, The Story of TECH in Minnesota, To Be Released

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documntaryDocuMNtary: The Story of TECH in Minnesota, will be released right after the upcoming Minnesota Cup event on September 22, 2016. Knowing many of the people in the film, hearing them enthusiastically discuss the experience, and my own watching of the trailer a few times, this documentary is undoubtedly going to have a big, positive impact on Minnesota’s tech scene.

nick-ericThe documentary team is comprised of producer Nick Roseth and videographer Eric Jenson, two accomplished techies who have all the requisite skills to make this film one worth watching and for promoting to everyone you know OUTSIDE of Minnesota who is relatively clueless about the tech scene here. Their about page is here which will give you a synopsis of their motivation, focus, objective and how the film itself is structured:

  • We have an incredible community, we are growing, we need tech talent, and we don’t do a very good job of telling our story. 
  • DocuMNtary is a project to build awareness of technology in Minnesota by telling our story through a documentary series.
  • The project objective is to help Minnesota become a top 5 tech community by retaining and attracting top technology talent.
  • DocuMNtary will be distributed primarily as a web experience along with other channel partners such as public television. The web experience allows us to ensure that this story is available to all people and organizations in Minnesota and beyond.
  • The series consists of the 30-minute high-level story, and individual 5-10 minute stories from specific people, companies, industries, or other components of our ecosystem. The documentary format allows us to tell the world not only about our great community, innovation, and company stories, but also gives us opportunity to talk about our great music scene, values, outdoor life, culinary wonders, and a booming craft beer industry to name just a few things that make Minnesota what it is.

The Trailer

When Will It Be Released?

Join community leaders, technologists, and many others to celebrate and advocate our tech community.

  • 7pm, September 22nd, 2016
  • McNamara Alumni Center, University of Minnesota (map)
  • Immediately following MN Cup Awards Presentation

How to Get a Ticket

  1. Get on the mailing list: Some time ago we signed up to get on the list for when DocuMNtary would be released. We’re so close…so it’s time for you to sign up now!
  2. Then watch your email: Ticket release will be August 15th. Keep an eye out for an email with ticket release info.
  3. Share this post and/or email it to one person and tell them to check out the trailer.

sponsorshipSponsorship

Interested in sponsorship? Sponsorship info can be found here (PDF).

DoApp Inc. Is Acquired by MN-based Newscycle Solutions

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DoApp-logo-175wDoApp has gone and done it — and, yes, it’s cool.

The highly successful Minnesota mobile startup has been acquired by Newscycle Solutions, a 500-employee Bloomington MN-based firm that “develops and delivers software technology to empower the global news media industry.” DoApp has developed more than 1,500 mobile apps for the news publishing and broadcast industries.  All DoApp employees will join Newscycle. The acquisition closed on June 10, 2016; the price was not announced.

DoApp was founded in early 2008 by former Google employee Joe Sriver and a small team. It has been entirely self-funded and profitable for six years. Newscycle Solutions is made up four merged companies and is owned by Vista Equity Partners, based in San Francisco, which was the most active firm in the M&A business last year. (Within the past two weeks alone, it acquired Marketo and Ping Identity, deals valued collectively at $2.4 billion.)

Newscycle describes its mission as “enabling news media to thrive in a rapidly transforming market in order to protect the integrity of information and create more informed individuals and stronger communities.” Newscycle has more than 750 media company customers in more than 30 countries around the world.

DoApp founders

DoApp’s founders: Wade Beavers, CEO (left); Dave Borrillo, board member and former COO (right), now VP mobile at CoreLogic; and Joe Sriver, Founder (foreground).

DoApp CEO Wade Beavers will become president of the company’s mobile unit. Joe Sriver will become chief mobile architect. Another founder and board member, former COO and CTO Dave Borrillo, previously joined CoreLogic (NYSE: CLGX) when that company acquired DoApp’s real-estate mobile platform in late 2014. He is now VP of mobile innovation for CoreLogic, working from Rochester MN where he has a team of developers. (See my post about that asset acquisition here.)

I asked Wade Beavers for a comment on the Newscycle acquisition:

“I love that another Minnesota company found our technology to be a great fit for them. This is just the beginning of what we’re going to do with tech and Minnesota talent.”

By my quick count, I’ve published at least 10 blog posts involving DoApp over the years, beginning in 2008. Most were published both on my personal blog and Minnov8. Some of these posts were extensive stories about the company’s development and progress over that time.  Here are just a few from recent years:

• AdWords Is Too Complex, Says Original Google Team Member – Here’s His Better Solution: ‘Adagogo’ (Oct 2013)

• While You Weren’t Looking, DoApp Inc. Has Been Quietly Building a Powerhouse Mobile Business (Aug 2013)

•  Minnesota Mobile Developers Clocking Millions of Downloads (May 2010)

All posts published on Minnov8 relating to DoApp are located here.

My HUGE congrats to the DoApp team!

[Disclosure: DoApp is one of the companies in my client equity portfolio. I helped launch the firm in 2008, serving as its VP Marketing.]

The complete text of the news release follows. The link for that release may be accessed here at Newscycle’s web site.

_______

NEWSCYCLE Solutions expands mobile business with DoApp acquisition

Purchase of mobile technology company enables NEWSCYCLE Solutions to accelerate its focus on mobile news and advertising solutions for media companies

Bloomington, MN – June 13, 2016 – NEWSCYCLE Solutions (“NEWSCYCLE“), a leading provider of software and services for the global media industry, today announced it has acquired DoApp, Inc., a mobile application development and mobile ad network company.

With over 500 customers using the DoApp platform, the company has developed more than 1,500 mobile apps for the news publishing and broadcast industries. The DoApp product portfolio includes DoApp Mobile Publishing and Advertising, a platform for media companies to deliver content on mobile devices through native apps and the mobile web. DoApp also developed the self-serve mobile advertising solution, Adagogo, providing local advertisers a fast and simple tool to reach customers across mobile news, sports and weather apps. DoApp’s latest offering, Readful, is a mobile news content sharing and curation platform.

NEWSCYCLE will integrate the DoApp mobile technology into a newly formed mobile product pillar, enabling the company to expand its mobile offerings for digital publishing, advertising and audience management.

“The DoApp acquisition allows NEWSCYCLE to extend our efforts in helping media companies embrace mobile-first workflows and build new mobile revenue streams,” said Preston McKenzie, CEO of NEWSCYCLE Solutions. “By adding the DoApp mobile development expertise, technology platform and ad network to the NEWSCYCLE portfolio, we further expand our ability to introduce new value-added mobile solutions to our combined client base.”

“Mobile is an important focus for media companies competing in a digital world,” said Wade Beavers, President of Mobile at NEWSCYCLE Solutions and former CEO of DoApp. “We look forward to combining our efforts to offer an even wider range of innovative mobile solutions to the global media industry.”

DoApp was founded in 2008, and today the company has a diverse set of media customers in local television, radio and newspaper publishing markets. Based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the DoApp development and business operations team will join efforts with the NEWSCYCLE team in Bloomington, Minnesota. DoApp’s customers will continue to receive the same levels of high-quality service for all mobile products while also gaining the benefits of NEWSCYCLE’s global resources and experience.

“DoApp has led the way for media companies to be the best in their markets with an awesome mobile experience that hasn’t been matched,” said Wade Beavers. “Becoming part of the NEWSCYCLE family will allow us to create a more complete experience that will take publishers forward and connect them to their audiences across all devices.”

The transaction closed on June 10, 2016. Financial terms have not been disclosed.

For more information, review the FAQs.

About DoApp

DoApp Inc. designs mobile applications (apps) and websites for the broadcast, radio, and newspaper industries and has built a mobile ad network that enables local businesses to quickly and easily advertise on mobile and tablet devices. The company, based out of Minnesota with teams in both Rochester and Minneapolis, focuses on making apps “cool” and easy-to-use, and has been featured in numerous publications, including Forbes, MSNBC, Bloomberg Business Week, ESPN Magazine, iPhone Life, and many more. DoApp’s complete product portfolio encompasses mobile entertainment, productivity, and lifestyle apps. The company is one of the largest app development providers and has numerous patents that are representative of the DoApp’s continued innovation in the world of mobile.

[Note: This post first appeared on my personal blog, GraemeThickinsOnTech.]

Vugonauts’ “No Guts, No Glory”

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vugo-logoA few weeks ago we interviewed one of the co-founders of Vugo, CEO Rob Flessner, on our podcast (see Minnov8 Gang 363 – You Go with Vugo). We came away with a new and deeper appreciation for this intriguing startup delivering advertisement technology for ridesharing (e.g., Uber, Lyft) and you can get an instant idea of what they do by watching the short video at the bottom of this post.

As such, we were delighted to see that Vugo made it on the list of High Tech startups for the Minnesota Cup (see Minnesota Cup Names 2016 Semifinalists). Then co-founder James Bellefeuille, the guy who initially reached out to us at Minnov8 and led to having Rob on the podcast, pinged us again since they were about to release the press release below about making the cut for MN Cup.

No Guts, No Glory

The Vugonauts return to The Minnesota Cup with a bold vision,
continuing a track record of success with string of events and recognition.

Minneapolis, Minnesota – June 8th, 2016 – Vugo’s persistence continues with a string of recognition. Yesterday, the Minneapolis-based startup was selected as a top ten Semi-Finalist in the High Tech Division of the Minnesota Cup for a second year in a row. After last year’s disappointment of not advancing past the Semi-Finalist round, the Vugonauts and their Minnesota work ethic are determined to win this year’s top prize.

“Bringing new products to market is always challenging, and entrepreneurship is a lot about persistence and hard work. I think our team has done a great job over the past year doing that, and it shows with the traction we’ve made.” indicated Vugo’s CEO, Robert Flessner. “Last year during this time we had just released our minimum viable product during our beta launch and used the MN Cup as an opportunity to help us refine who we were. This year, we like our chances to win it.”

Vugo is a mobility media network placing media content and advertisements in for-hire transportation services like rideshare vehicles and taxicabs. Vugo’s TripIntent® technology allows advertisers and content providers to target specific trips based on available information. Vugo works with small businesses and major advertisers including a handful of Fortune 500 companies to help them reach the right audiences. During the MN Cup last year, Vugo was able to raise a seed round to assist the initial launch.

Despite being a homegrown startup with founders from the University of Saint Thomas and Metropolitan State University, Vugo’s largest market is Los Angeles where the company has hundreds of rideshare drivers from Uber and Lyft using the service. Co-Founder and LA Market Manager James Bellefeuille spoke recently at Startups in The Sky on May 19th. The event discussed innovations in transportation with panelists from HyperLoop One, EverCar, SKURT, Vugo, and Fixing Angeleno’s Stuck in Traffic (FAST).

James described Vugo’s focus on the passenger entertainment experience. Vugo believes that people are no longer going to be preoccupied with driving due to ridesharing and autonomous cars. Passengers are already engaging automobiles through the entertainment system, instead of the steering wheel with services like Lyft, Juno and Uber as riding is becoming the new driving.

“Although self-driving cars are improving efficiency and creating a safer transportation option for the masses, Vugo believes what autonomous shared cars will really help with is free passengers up to do other things like engage with media content.” said James Bellefeuille. “The average American driver spends an hour in the car daily, and Vugo is going to help make it worthwhile by turning the car into a mobile entertainment room, the ideal passenger entertainment experience.”

Vugo’s goal is to be the largest in-car media network in the country by the end of 2018. If you’re curious in learning more about Vugo’s bold new vision for mobility media & entertainment, James Bellefeuille will be speaking at CoCo’s NextNext Media and Adtech Summit at the Garage at COCO’s Uptown Co-working and event center on June 30th, with 20 other leaders debating the future of media, journalism, entertainment and advertising.

Vugo was also recently recognized as a recipient of the Eureka! Innovations Awards by the Minneapolis – St Paul Business Journal for its work revolutionizing media and advertising. The award was announced on May 6th, with the Awards ceremony scheduled for June 16th in Downtown Minneapolis at the Aria Event Center.

“Vugo would fit in perfectly in Silicon Valley, but we want to help be a part of a new and thriving startup ecosystem home to the Twin Cities. Minneapolis is a great place to start a business because of the great business network, Universities, and big companies that develop talented people with an uncompromising Midwestern work-ethic. We have big things happening at Vugo that we are looking forward to sharing as the year progresses. We intend to count winning the Minnesota Cup as one of them.” said CEO, Robert Flessner.

Contact:
James Bellefeuille
Co-Founder
James@GoVugo.com

For more on Vugo:

Honeywell Creates New #IoT Division

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honeywellpsHoneywell Process Solutions (HPS), has established a Digital Transformation unit to help manufacturers harness the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and more rapidly deploy the technologies that will allow them to better manage and analyze data, according to Automation World.

As manufacturing systems grow more complex, it has become more important for automation suppliers to provide not only the components but an easier means to a complete solution. This trend carries over into the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), where it’s not always easy for production operations to make the best use of the data that’s being gathered to improve their processes.

So automation suppliers are increasingly creating business units and systems dedicated to digital deployment to best leverage the IIoT technologies they’re offering.

Read the full article here.

TruScribe Kickstarts ‘Global Visual Language’

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TruScribe-crowdsourcingThought you’d heard it all on Kickstarter? Well, how many times have you run into a project there that’s about launching a language? You read that right. Get your credit cards out, Minnesota startup lovers! Here’s your chance to say you were there back in ’16 when history was made.

But here’s the deal: you gotta tell a lot of your friends, because the folks at TruScribe have set a pretty hefty goal for this one: it’s $100k.  Of course, that’s befitting the ginormous implications here — I mean, how often do you get to impact the entire freaking global community, with that single audacious goal to allow everyone on the planet to communicate visually? This is big stuff, people!! What’s a lousy little 100 Grover Clevelands?

TruScribe, as you’ll recall, is a whiteboard video animation company that was cofounded in Minnesota. (We TruGlyph-logowrote about them here back in 2014.) A large part of its staff is in Madison WI, but Minneapolis became its headquarters a while back, with great new digs at International Market Square. It was named the 253rd fastest-growing company on the Inc. 5000 list in 2015, which was understandably touted far and wide. (As a point of reference, crazy-fast-growing LeadPages of Minneapolis was #220.) In February 2016, TruScribe announced the first part of its new initiative to transform into a full-fledged software business, with a new iOS app called TruGlyph. (You can download the app here.)

What’s coming next you can see in their new (and very first) Kickstarter project. Here’s an excerpt from that page on what it’s all about:

“We’re asking creatives – artists, word nerds, and everyday folk – to join our community and contribute to our efforts through our TruGlyph app. And we need your help to create the TruGlyph Marketplace that will reward those that contribute in the most meaningful ways.”

On communicating visually:

“While the internet and social platforms help us reach people anywhere on earth, we are worlds away from the technology helping us be understood across languages and cultures. People are visual observers and learners, but we’re often limited to text and audio when we want to communicate in meaningful ways. We believe that a Visual Language is the first step in allowing people to communicate visually.”

On the big goal of a global visual language:

“Visually representing even a single language is an incredible undertaking and even more so as we’re reaching across the world. Which is why we can’t do it alone, nor should we do it alone and why crowdsourcing is the only way we will accomplish it. Language isn’t defined by the dictionaries that print it, but by the people that use it.”

About the Glyph, the building block of this language:

“A Glyph is a simple image that animates as if drawn and is associated with words and context. The TruGlyph-FourPhoneScreenscommunity is already using our TruGlyph app to draw glyphs, tag them with words, and play games that pit glyph versus glyph asking the player to decide which has more meaning. When a glyph increases and meaning and rises up to become part of the Global Visual Language, it’s because of their efforts — which is why we need to reward them..(our) marketplace will be a system that allows creatives who contribute to the global visual language, in the most meaningful ways, to be rewarded and compensated for their efforts.”

And here’s more about TruScribe software:

“It’s an innovative platform designed to let you communicate via video using the TruGlyph global visual language. Send a video message to a friend; create a video to market your business; your ideas can be understood by anyone, anywhere. Backing the Kickstarter gives you a FREE subscription to the TruScribe software and the new frontier in worldwide communication and understanding.”

So, there you have it, crowdfunders — get your credit card out, back the project, and grab your reward!

——-

[Disclosure: TruScribe has been a client of mine.]

 

MN Tech Founders Tell 11-Year-Olds What It’s Like to Start a Business

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Kidizen logoA pretty cool meetup happened over the weekend at CoCo Northeast. On Saturday afternoon, the cofounders of Kidizen, Mary Fallon and Dori Graf (who office there), got

Wade Gerten

Wade Gerten

together with another experienced tech startup founder,

Wade Gerten, to show some young girls what starting a company is all about. Wade and his wife, Lisa, brought along a group of five 11-year-olds, including their own daughter, all classmates at Poplar Bridge Elementary School in Bloomington.

I was delighted to be the one who introduced Wade to Mary and Dori, after learning last week from Wade that he was looking for a female-founded startup who would speak to the girls. Though I was traveling and couldn’t be there on Saturday, Wade was kind enough to provide some photos and comments on how the meetup went.

(Wade, as you may recall, was CEO/cofounder of 8th Bridge, formerly Alvenda, which was the Minnesota Cup grand prize winner in 2009. It was acquired in 2014. He’s now VP of Digital & Customer Experience at Infor.)

After I made the introduction and asked if the Kidizen cofounders would be willing to host the girls, Mary immediately agreed and said, “We’ll do our best to show them how rewarding entrepreneurship can be! It’s truly great to see that Minneapolis girls are being exposed to the tech scene.”

Mary Fallon (left) and Dori Graf talking to 11-year-olds about business,

Mary Fallon (left) and Dori Graf tell the girls what’s it’s like to run a business.

Following the meeting, she said: “The girls were awesome! There were some great questions and ideas from the group. We were thoroughly impressed. We’re also truly impressed that Wade and Lisa, as parents, are encouraging these girls to learn how to code. They are way ahead of the game!”

Mary continued: “When I was their age, I was part of a group called the ‘Future Problem Solvers of America’ and, thinking back, it made a big difference in my education and path in life because it taught me how to think bigger… Part of my ongoing dream would be to give back to our startup community via its youth and/or schools by helping shape young entrepreneurial thinking. So, our meetup on Saturday certainly scratched an itch for me. Wade and Lisa, if you ever start that brainstorming group you mentioned, I’d love to help!”

In a followup email, Wade said: “I really appreciated Mary and Dori offering to host my girlMary+Dori+girls coder gang of five 11-year-olds. Earlier in the day, we’d taken part in the Rebecca CoderDojo, a two-hour coding class just for girls. This was just a day I organized, not an official school thing. I was attempting to plant some seeds with the girls that not only is coding fun, but so could be starting their own company.”

He went on: “Based on the chatter in the car ride home, I think the girls were surprised by what ‘business’ means. My daughter commented, ‘I thought you said we were visiting a business. That wasn’t a business!’ She had some kind of image in her mind that business meant boring or corporate. They didn’t expect a slack line competition, a hammock chair, and the red tennis shoes! Thank you, Mary and Dori, for meeting our girls yesterday. You were gracious and inspiring. I suspect only a couple of hip momma storytellers like you could’ve made a business story so understandable and interesting to 11 year old girls!”

So, take a look: these may be the faces of some future Minnesota tech founders! Kudos to Wade, Mary, and Dori for making it happen.

NativeX Acquired by Chinese Mobile Ad Firm Mobvista

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Ryan (left) and Rob Weber, cofounders of NativeX

Ryan (left) and Rob Weber, cofounders of NativeX.

Minnesota’s NativeX announced today it is being acquired by Guangzhou-based Mobvista, Asia’s largest mobile advertising company. The company said the all-cash deal is valued at 160 million yuan, or 25 million US dollars. Once the transaction is completed, NativeX will become a subsidiary of Mobvista.

NativeX was founded by Minnesota twin brothers Rob and Ryan Weber and traces its beginnings to a former company they and a third brother, Aaron, founded in St. Cloud more than 15 years ago, called Freeze.com. The firm later changed its name to W3i, then made a major transformation to mobile ad technology in early 2013, rebranding as NativeX. It specializes in monetization and advertising through proprietary native ad technology for mobile games and apps.

Mobvista also has offices in Hong Kong, Beijing, New Delhi, Singapore, and San Francisco. NativeX has offices in St. Cloud (Sartell), Minneapolis, San Francisco, and Finland.

Rob Weber will continue as CEO of NativeX, and serve as a vice president of the Mobvista Group. “We currently have 40 employees in Minnesota,” said Rob, “and we’re planning for all of our current employees to stay on. Also, as part of the growth opportunity presented in light of the merger, we plan to hire additional employees at both our Sartell and Minneapolis locations.”

Rob continued: “Ryan and I are very excited with our new partnership. Strategically, it makes sense to combine forces with a strong force in Eastern markets. We are planning to stay on board in the same roles we have now.”

The full text of the press release follows:

Mobvista Acquires NativeX Accelerating Global Growth for Mobile Advertising and Monetization

NativeX Native Video Monetization Technology Combined with Mobvista’s Mobile Advertising Market Reach Opens New Revenue Opportunities For Publishers and Advertisers

Guangzhou, Minneapolis, San Francisco, Hong Kong, Beijing, New Delhi, Singapore – March 1, 2016 – Mobvista, Asia’s largest mobile advertising company, announced today that it has acquired NativeX, which specializes in successful monetization and advertising through their innovative native ad technology for mobile games and apps. This includes NativeX’s robust native video advertising platform which includes Lightning Play™ video, offer walls, interstitials and other rich media formats. The deal is valued at 160 million yuan (an all cash transaction of 25 million USD). Once the transaction is completed, NativeX will become a subsidiary of Mobvista. Rob Weber will continue as CEO of NativeX, and serve as Vice President of the Mobvista Group.

Wei Duan, founder & CEO of Mobvista says, “NativeX is a solid, sustainable business and our technology focus and values are perfectly aligned to deliver rich growth opportunities to the mobile market and to further secure Mobvista’s international goals and success, especially to speed up our ability to supply substantial audiences in Western markets. Acquiring NativeX is another key step in realizing our global ad-tech vision to develop a multi-dimensional global ecosystem of mobile traffic.”

Mobvista operates a worldwide mobile ad network, receiving more than 10 billion daily impressions from integrated ad spots and websites across more than 240 countries. Founded in 2013, Mobvista has successfully developed billions of overseas users for thousands of clients. Mobvista has also been instrumental in helping many mobile games achieve significant success in Southeast Asia. In November 2015, the company had a listed market value of more than 6 billion yuan.

Wei continues, “Between Mobvista and NativeX, publishers and advertisers can expect to have the combination of the highest growth categories in mobile marketing including native advertising, video and other innovative ad formats — all with strong data driven technologies.”

NativeX has an audience reach of over 1 billion mobile users and works with more than 1,000 publishers including Yodo1, Square Enix, Fingersoft, MADFINGER Games, Mag Interactive, Outfit 7, and Play With Games, as well as hundreds of top advertisers including Disney, King, Zynga, Rovio, IGG, and Machine Zone.

“We look forward to a successful future as part of the Mobvista family and are exceptionally pleased with the many benefits this acquisition will bring to both our publisher and advertising partners as well as to our employees,” says Robert Weber, CEO and co-founder of NativeX.

“The MobVista acquisition of NativeX allows us to expand the distribution of our native ad technology throughout the world for an even greater international presence. We are excited to bring Mobvista’s leading global demand to NativeX’s monetization partners and it’s strong global supply, especially in APAC, to our advertising partners.

As part of our merger with Mobvista, we will also be expanding our team to take advantage of the large opportunity in front of us.”

About Mobvista 

Mobvista specializes in global mobile advertising and overseas game publishing. As an industry leading mobile advertising platform, Mobvista covers users from more than 240 countries and regions, reaching over 10 billion daily impressions through boosting technology innovation and excellent customized service. It also owns a user database covering over 2 billion devices and 3000+ user targeting labels.

Mobvista ranked No.3, following Facebook and Google AdWords, in the Global Android Power Ranking released in 2016 by AppsFlyer, a leading mobile analytics platform. In AppsFlyer’s gaming and non-gaming performance index released in April and October in 2015, it also ranked top3 for both. Mobvista got listed on NEEQ in 2015, with a market value of around USD 10 billion.

Mobvista has over 300 employees, with global offices in Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Beijing, San Francisco, New Delhi, and Singapore.

Join Mobvista here: http://mobvista.hasoffers.com/

Official Website: http://www.mobvista.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mobvista.official

Twitter: @MobvistaInc

About NativeX

NativeX is the leading native ad technology for mobile apps and games, providing effective user acquisition and smarter mobile app monetization through a wide range of both reward and non-reward rich media ads, including Lightning Play™ video, multi-offer walls, interstitials and other innovative ad formats. A feature-rich SDK which allows publishers to balance their monetization and make a wide range of changes in placements, rewards and ad formats delivered is one of many integration options available to publishers.

NativeX has 12 consecutive years of profitability under its belt and has acquired more than 1 billion users across 178 countries through multi-year partnerships with top app developers

NativeX continues to be recognized as a top User Acquisition and Monetization provider from multiple industry publications including AppsFlyer, MobyAffiliates, VentureBeat and more, with leading publishers and advertisers voting NativeX as “Top 10 Most Effective Monetization Company” and “Top 5 Best Company for User Acquisition.”

With a team of 50 employees in Minnesota, California, and Finland, NativeX headquarters will continue to be based in Minnesota.

Official Website: http://www.nativex.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nativex

Twitter: @nativex

App Developers, NativeX Has an Education for You

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Graphic: VentureBeat

Graphic: VentureBeat

If you publish apps (and it’s hard to find a company these days that doesn’t), you’d better be up on the new science — and art — of App Store Optimization. Yes, say hello to another acronym: ASO. We all know about SEO — it’s such common practice, we do it like breathing. But when the whole world has gone mobile, when everyone and their mother are publishing apps, if you aren’t into ASO – well, you’re falling behind. It’s a major new focus for app developers and publishers, and one of our most successful Minnesota startups is ready to take you to school on it.

ASO is the direct result of a phenomenon VentureBeat calls “invisible app syndrome.” In a post today, it explains: “With over 1.5 million apps in each app store, it’s easy for apps to disappear and never be seen… App Store Optimization (ASO) can bring your app out of hiding, placing it squarely in front of the customers who need or want it, and keep them clicking through.”

St. Cloud-based NativeX is an experienced player in helping app publishers NativeX-logooptimize for the app stores. You know them well. We’ve certainly written about the company before. It lately describes itself as “the premiere ad technology choice of top-charting mobile games and apps.” It has an expert team of engineers, data scientists, account managers, and designers, and has been recognized as a leader in effective monetization and user acquisition.

NativeX has been an innovator as well in redefining native advertising for mobile games and apps. (Worth mentioning here is that this Minnesota-born startup has been profitable for 12 straight years. Yes, you read that correctly. We grow ‘em good here in the cold North – where the firm began life under the name Freeze.com.)

An Upcoming ASO Webinar: “Money for nothing, clicks for free”
VentureBeat is hosting a webinar on February 18th on App Store Optimization. It’s sponsored by none other than NativeX, who will be participating along with Aaron Kardell, founder of Minneapolis-based real-estate apps publisher HomeSpotter.

From the post about the event (where you can register): “Mobile app developers are fighting a fearsome battle every day. As mobile continues to be second nature for us, publishers are releasing countless new apps on a daily basis — almost 1,500 a day are added to Apple’s App store alone. However, only a few will gain the undivided attention of the public.”

ASO Best Practices
In addition to sponsoring the upcoming webinar, NativeX just released an ASO white paper, which is all about best practices to help publishers improve app store visibility. WhitePaperTitle-NativeX-ASOIt’s the first in a two-part series. Part 1 focuses on Search Ranking optimization. Part 2 will focus on improving Chart Ranking.

RyanWeber-NativeX

Ryan Weber, NativeX

“With the millions of apps already in the app stores,”  said Ryan Weber, NativeX cofounder and chief product officer, “many developers have experienced the crushing reality of publishing an app that never finds an audience because the audience never finds the app.”

VentureBeat says this about the new white paper: “It takes effort and insight to implement the kind of ASO that makes a measurable difference, but the experts at NativeX have broken that process down to four steps.”

Ryan Weber adds: “67% of app users say the last app they downloaded was found through typing their inquiry into the app store search, making search the dominant organic app discovery method. Improving search ranking within those stores has become one of the most critical ASO requirements for publishers.”

Weber said that NativeX published the white paper to answer the questions most relevant to app publishers about ASO and how to improve their app store visibility. Specifically, here are the questions it addresses:

  • What is ASO?
  • What motivates users to download an app?
  • How are users finding/ discovering apps?
  • What impact do paid installs have on organic installs?
  • What do you need to measure for effective search discovery?
  • How do you pick the right keywords?
  • What tools are available to help with keyword selection?
  • How does relevance, difficulty and popularity affect keyword prioritization?
  • What are On-Page and Off-Page influence factors and what improves search rank?
  • How do you optimize paid campaign delivery for the purpose of influencing Off-Page factors?
  • What can you do in your app to influence Ratings and Reviews to improve ranking and conversion rate?
  • What are best practices for optimizing your app store click-through & conversion rates?
  • What tools are available to help with AB Testing to determine best assets to use?

VentureBeat published an extensive report  a couple of months ago on App Store Optimization. In a post describing that report, it says, “App publishers who implement ASO can realistically expect a 20% lift in organic downloads, and can in some cases double or even triple their organic downloads. That’s huge, and reduces overall cost per acquisition of each mobile user.”

That report sells for $499. But you can get a pretty darn good education for free by reading NativeX’s two-part white paper series mentioned above.

Then you can not only be on your way to increasing your own downloads, but you’ll be ready to help your mother when she’s ready to publish her first app, right?

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[Note: This post first appeared on my personal blog, Graeme Thickins On Tech.]