Rakuten Marketing, the digital arm of Japanese eCommerce giant Rakuten has acquired mobile marketing firm Deep Forest Media in a move aimed at developing a more powerful mobile solution for cross-device reach.

Palo Alto-based Deep Forest is a programmatic mobile marketing company and demand-side platform which was targeted by Rakuten due to its proprietary tracking and optimisation technology, which could greatly improve mobile performance.

In addition, Deep Forests technology allows for hyper-local targeting, user segmentation across devices and dynamic creative optimisation, and the firm has partnerships with several leading networks and exchanges, including MoPub, Rubicon Project and TapSense.

“With mobile commerce projected to reach $298bn (£202bn) in 2015 we wanted to invest in a company and team that bring strong mobile capabilities to align with our vision,” said Tony Zito, president of Rakuten Marketing. “A critical part of that is integrating cross-device engagement and conversion data into our proprietary attribution solutions to reinforce and expand our commitment to performance and transparency.”

Rakuten has been increasingly investing in mobile companies recently, having picked up over-the-top messaging app Viber last year, and purchasing an 11.9 per cent stake in ride-hailing app Lyft earlier this month.

“Rakuten Marketing has a bold, customer-centric vision for the future of omni-channel marketing and we could not have found a better home for our team and technology,” said Naghi Prasad, founder and CEO of Deep Forest. “With the synergies between our technologies and Rakuten data, we are poised to have the kind of impact on the market that will change the way we think about the consumer journey and how to optimise it.”