Rubicon Project Acquires Mobsmith To Expand Into Mobile Ads

Online advertising company Rubicon Project just announced that it’s getting into the mobile market by acquiring a startup called Mobsmith.

The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed in the announcement, but AllThingsD is hearing that the price was $10 million.

Rubicon does say that it will be combining Mobsmith’s technology with its own to create “a single platform and marketplace for buying and selling of both display and mobile ad inventory.” Rubicon Project founder and CEO Frank Addante describes Mobsmith as “the best product we have seen on the market” with “the strongest product and engineering team.” The 10-person Mobsmith team will remain in San Francisco, becoming Los Angeles-headquartered Rubicon’s SF office.

Formerly known as NearbyAd, Mobsmith launched last April with a platform to create and target rich media ads for mobile websites and apps. It raised $575,000 from Blumberg Capital, XG Ventures, and various angels.

Rubicon, meanwhile, claims to be the advertising platform with the largest installed base among comScore 500 publishers, with a reach of 650 million unique users. It says this is its fourth ad tech acquisition in three years.