Mobile marketing technology company Fiksu has been acquired by global asset management firm Noosphere, a little over a year after the company had to abandon plans to go public and scale back its international operations.

Fiksu helps brands and marketers reach target audiences through mobile using a platform that offers actionable data and audience segmentation tools. Following the acquisition, it will operate as part of ClickDealer, a marketing agency based in Menlo Park, California.

Founded in 2008, Fiksu initially had great success, raising around $17m (£11.7m) in funding from investors and, by 2014, bringing in over $100m in revenues annually. However, as Google and Facebook increasingly shifted their focus to mobile, the company began to struggle to compete.

In early 2015, the company had to cancel IPO plans that it had been working towards, and at the same time let go of 10 per cent of its workforce. Later that year, another 10 per cent of staff were laid off, and the firm closed a number of its international offices.

“Im incredibly proud of what weve built over these past five years and grateful to the entire team that has contributed, and excited about our transition into ClickDealer and Noosphere and driving the evolution and innovation of mobile advertising,” said Micha Adler, CEO and co-founder of Fiksu.

“As experts in transforming high-potential companies into definitive market leaders – with a diverse set of advertising technology businesses in their portfolio – Noosphere not only saw an incredible opportunity in Fiksu but also noted the remarkable synergy of our teams.”

Fiksu, which publishes monthly app store metrics, has access to a huge store of data on app and game downloads, marketing costs and usage, totally around 26 trillion mobile data points, and some industry experts believe the acquisition is more to do with accessing this data than making use of Fiksus talent or platform.

“In Fiksu, Micah has built a strong and innovative team who we welcome to the Noosphere family,” said Max Polyakov, chairman and founder of Noosphere. “The combination of our resources and their technology and talent is win-win for us both, and for the industry we serve.”