Medio will help Angry Birds maker find even more users with predictive analytics (exclusive)

It may seem like everyone on the planet has played Angry Birds, but Rovio‘s mobile game has been downloaded only 300 million times, and the company wants to hit more than a billion users. To that end, Rovio is teaming up today with Medio Systems to take advantage of its predictive analytics service.

The deal isn’t a gigantic one, but it tells you what successful game companies are doing in terms of data mining to extend the reach of successful games. Medio is an analytics vendor that says it goes beyond mere reporting of user data. Rather, it forms a profile of users and makes real-time predictions about the kind of content, offering or monetization offers a user will respond to. Medio will support Rovio titles across all consumer platforms including Google Chrome, Android devices, the iPhone and the iPad.

Rovio’s Angry Birds games are played about 1.4 billion minutes a week, producing a ton of data. Medio taps location-aware connected devices, structured and unstructured data (like numbers or videos), and ways to find more users. The idea is to absorb all of that data and turn it into useful information for improving fan satisfaction, getting users to play longer, and making the right pitches to them.

Robert Lilleness, chief executive of Seattle-based Medio, said the platform was built for the age of Big Data and can scale to handle millions upon millions of users. Medio has been profitable since 2010 and grew revenues 280 percent last year. The platform generates 1.3 billion personalized recommendations each month. Other customers include T-Mobile USA, Verizon Wireless, Telus Mobility, CBS and ABC. The company was founded in 2004 and competes with rivals such as Flurry.

Medio is backed with $46 million in funding to date from Accel Partners ( a Rovio investor), Frazier Technology Ventures, Trilogy Equity Partners, and Mohr Davidow Ventures. In June, Medio announced its analytics platform monitored more than 2.5 million daily unique users. With the addition of Angry Birds, you have to figure it’s going to be more than that now.

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.