Limelight Acquires Mobile-Video Ad Startup

Content-delivery network provider Limelight Networks on Thursday announced the acquisition of Kiptronic, a startup that provides services to deliver video advertising and content to mobile devices.

San Francisco-based Kiptronic's include NBC.com, Fox, NPR, The Guardian, Conde Nast, The Economist and Minnesota Public Radio. Its ad-insertion system is integrated with DoubleClick DART for Publishers and Microsoft Atlas AdManager.

Limelight said it acquired Kiptronic with a combination of Limelight common stock and cash. The deal is valued at about $12 million, according to a report by StreamingMedia.com.

"The combination of Limelight Networks' distributed computing and delivery platform with Kiptronic's device-targeting and dynamic ad insertion technologies will allow us to provide the world's largest media and entertainment companies a streamlined and scalable solution to this problem,"

Limelight chairman and CEO Jeff Lunsford said in announcing the deal.

As part of Limelight, the Kiptronic team "will continue to remain focused on building mobility and monetization solutions," according to the companies, led by Kiptronic president and CEO Bill Loewenthal.

Kiptronic's investors included venture-capital firms Blueprint Ventures and Prism VentureWorks. The company was founded in 2005.

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.