Kochava acquires Thalamus to connect ad buyers and vendors

Kochava, a Sandpoint Idaho-based mobile attribution tech startup announced today that it has acquired database maker Thalamus to connect ad buyers and vendors as the ad industry adjusts to the ever-changing landscape. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

With this acquisition, Kochava plans to rebrand Thalamus as Kochava Media Index, a Yelp-like directory and database of records for the online advertising industry. The new  Kochava Media Index will enable brands, agencies, and vendors to source and connect with new potential partners across the digital and mobile advertising ecosystem.

Founded in 2014, Thalamus is a de facto search engine for paid media (ad vendors & publishers, brands & agencies, influencers, podcasters). More than 30,000 registered media buyers use Thalamus to research advertising opportunities, and discover new potential partners.

“Finding fresh reach inventory is very challenging. Discovering places where you can buy more media, where it’s a legitimate company, is valuable. That’s principally the reason why we made this decision,” said Manning.

Kochava says it won’t be charging a subscription for this new index. Instead, the company will monetize the new brand as a lead generation platform and drive users to other Kochava products.

“We are thrilled to be joining Kochava,” Garrett Gan, founder of Thalamus, said in a statement. “As the industry’s largest advertising database, the combination of our offering with Kochava’s rich solutions is a powerful new offering for the ecosystem.”

Founded in 2011 by Charles Manning, Kochava is one of the industry leaders in mobile app attribution and mobile app analytics. Through its unified audience platform, Kochava provides precision, real-time omnichannel attribution that helps data-driven marketers measure and optimize their marketing for every customer journey.

“We were planning to do this acquisition anyway,” Manning said. “And the IDFA change really just was an extra kicker on why this kind of thing is important in the ecosystem. Increasingly, we believe advertisers are having a harder time finding the inventory that moves the needle for them. We will roll this into a larger platform story that we’ve been on over the last several years.”