Jellyfish acquires The ASO Co as it doubles down on app space

Date

September 2018

Sectors

Digital media and content, Marketing services and technology

Deal Type

Merger/Acquisition

Our Role

Sell side & fundraising

About The ASO

The ASO Co is the world’s leading App Store Optimization agency. Trusted by some of the world’s largest brands including eBay, Spotify, Sephora, Walmart, Trainline, FarFetch, StubHub and many more, the company uses a combination of proprietary technology and data analysis/optimization methodologies in order to achieve exponential global organic mobile growth for their clients. The ASO Co provides an end to end, global App Store Optimization and management service covering competitor analysis, metadata/creative production, review management, A/B testing, localization, reporting, data analysis and optimization for all app stores globally.

About Jellyfish Group

Jellyfish is a global boutique agency, delivering digital marketing solutions for a host of brands from its offices in Europe, the US and South Africa. The agency’s winning combination of digital capabilities, technology and talent, along with its key industry partnerships, help to deliver integrated digital strategies for clients across many industries, including property, pharmaceutical, finance and automotive. Brands they work with include Experian, Nestlé, Toyota and Samsung, among many others.

About the deal

Jellyfish acquired 75% of the business with an agreement to acquire the remaining 25% at the end of a 21-month period. The acquisition forms part of Jellyfish’s continued global expansion, which has recently seen a move into APAC.

Our work

We acted as the exclusive financial adviser to The ASO Co to prepare, market and successfully sell the business, negotiating the final deal terms of the transaction having built a long lasting relationship with the management team right from the beginning of the business. This transaction continues to underline our expertise in advising entrepreneur led businesses in the media sector.

As our sole advisers, WY Partners were instrumental to the success of our acquisition. From day one, Will and the team provided outstanding advice and guidance, and made all matters crystal clear, from M&A jargon through to financial documents, a skill that many advisers do not possess. Their knowledge of the market led to a perfect introduction and acquisition to Jellyfish and I cannot recommend Will and the team at WY highly enough.

James Bott

Co-Founder

The ASO Co

Deal team