Could the adtech IPO drought be coming to an end?
This week, Blackstone-backed mobile adtech firm Liftoff filed to go public in the US, potentially ending a yearslong freeze that has seen only one major pure-play adtech IPO — connected-TV firm MNTN’s debut last spring — since 2021.
If the IPO market does reopen in earnest this year, adtech executives expect the first movers to resemble Liftoff. That means companies with consistent growth and exposure to performance advertising, the slice of the market focused on measurable outcomes like app installs and online sales, which is increasingly powered by AI.
Liftoff provides a software development kit that app developers install in their apps in order to sell advertising, and a product for advertisers that uses machine learning to help them target high-quality mobile users. It grew revenue by 30% year over year to $491 million in the nine months that ended September 30. The company reported $263.3 million in adjusted earnings — a 54% margin — and a net loss of $25.6 million in that period.
The mobile adtech companies InMobi and Moloco have similar profiles and could be the next candidates in the space to go public, industry experts said. The mobile adtech space has consolidated into just a handful of big players in recent years, including AppLovin, gaming engine Unity’s mobile ad business, Google’s AdMob, and Hong Kong-based Mobvista. Fresh IPO money could spark more M&A.
SoftBank-backed InMobi has long been rumored as an IPO candidate. Bloomberg reported in July that the company was aiming to raise as much as $1 billion in an Indian public listing at a valuation of between $5 billion and $6 billion, citing people familiar with the matter. Business Insider was unable to verify InMobi’s IPO plans. InMobi declined to comment for this article.
Ahn Ikjin, CEO of Tiger Global-backed Moloco, said in an interview with a Korean news outlet last month that “going public is one of the milestones that we aim to reach,” but didn’t specify a timeline. Moloco declined to comment.
Here’s why the market looks ripe for a year of mobile adtech IPOs.
The AppLovin effect
AppLovin’s meteoric rise has pushed its market cap past $200 billion, cementing its status as the most valuable pure-play adtech company by a wide margin. The company has some of the highest profit margins in all of tech — not just adtech — powered by its AI-driven Axon targeting platform and a recent expansion beyond gaming into e-commerce advertising.
Other mobile adtech companies and their investors will be hoping some of AppLovin’s magic rubs off on them.
“AppLovin is a bellwether for a buoyant space,” said Ciaran O’Kane, general partner at the adtech-focused venture fund FirstPartyCapital.
‘Performance’ pays on mobile
How did placing ads in solitaire games and talking cat apps become such a money-maker?
Consumer spending on mobile apps was estimated to have grown 21.6% year over year to reach $155.8 billion in 2025, according to the app intelligence company Appfigures.
App advertisers are “typically more focused on math than art,” said Alex Merutka, CEO of the creative technology platform Craftsman+.
They’re laser-focused on making tiny tweaks to variables in targeting, ad creative, and whether you show an ad in the first 30 seconds of the game —or the first 45 seconds — in order to drive performance. These advertisers are willing to pay top dollar to target potential “whales,” the users who are most likely to spend big once they download an app.
Mobile adtech companies have transformed from middlemen that simply placed ads on websites and apps into sophisticated platforms powered by AI, data, and machine learning. This can help advertisers feel confident that if they put $1 of ad spend in the machine, they’re likely to get $3, $5, or $10 back in revenue.
“Because advertising is such a short feedback loop, you get billions of data impressions,” to keep improving those targeting systems, Merutka said.
Apple headwinds are in the rear-view mirror
Apple ripped a huge hole in the mobile ad industry in 2021, forcing apps to ask users for permission to track them for advertising. With most users opting out of tracking, app publishers and advertisers lost access to Apple’s anonymous device identifier that helped them precisely target users and measure whether campaigns were working.
While many companies, most notably Meta, lost ad dollars in the immediate aftermath of Apple’s privacy update, they spent the last few years adapting. Through investments in first-party data, AI tools, and other techniques such as contextual advertising, mobile ad companies reduced their reliance on Apple’s identifier.
Another tailwind for 2026 is the erosion of Apple and Google’s grip over app store fees. Recent antitrust rulings have forced both companies to allow developers to use external payment links and other alternative payment methods, providing a path to avoid the standard 30% commission on downloads and in-app payments.
Eric Seufert, a mobile marketing analyst and investor, said this creates an ideal environment for increased mobile ad spending.
“The way these businesses operate, if I save money on commissions, I don’t bank it,” he said. “It’s recycled into user acquisition.”
