Unity today announced that it’s entered into an agreement with IronSource. The latter will merge with Unity and become a wholly-owned subsidiary.
The all-stock transaction values IronSource at about $4.4 billion and is expected to close on Q4 2022. Unity shareholders will own 73.5% of the combined company, while IronSource shareholders will own 26.5%. IronSource’s CEO, Tomar Bar-Zeev, will join Unity’s board of directors following the merger.
Following the merger, Unity’s game engine, ad platform and gaming services will merge with IronSource’s mediation, publishing and monetization solutions. According to Unity, this will “[give] developers a seamless and interoperable way to create, grow, and monetize their creations across their lifecycle.” In more immediate terms, IronSource’s mediation will “leverage the combined strength of the two companies’ ad networks to deliver increased user reach and data scale and provide an increased return on ad spend to advertisers.”
As for why the two companies are merging, Roman Garbar, marketing director of Tenjin, offered this explanation: “I feel both companies needed this merger to compete with ad juggernauts like Google, Meta, TikTok and AppLovin. And they can definitely do it if they play their cards right — our data shows that Unity and ironSource were the third and fourth biggest ad networks in terms of iOS ad spend by hypercasual games in Q1 2022. Combined, they are a formidable force. References to a ‘platform for Creator Economy’ also point to plans for an all-in-one platform where users can create, monetize and advertise games and other content.”