South Korean lockscreen advertising startup Buzzvil has acquired US rival Slidejoy for an undisclosed fee. Both companies enable smartphone users to gain rewards in exchange for displaying ads on their lockscreens.

Prior to the Slidejoy acquisition, Buzzvil had been running BuzzScreen – an SDK service to enable third party apps to experience lockscreen ad features – and HoneyScreen – its own B2C lockscreen reward app for Asia.

On the other hand, Slidejoy covers 23 countries across the world and was crowned the most addictive app in the US last year, according to SurveyMonkey.

The acquisition of Slidejoy is part of a global expansion by the South Korean company, founded in 2012, as it plans on going public. Furthermore, it says the purchase will enable it to apply machine learning-based AI to its backend system to ‘make whole different changes on providing high quality service’.

In a blog post, announcing the acquisition, Buzzvil said: “The acquisition of Slidejoy is Buzzvil’s emergence as a truly global company with operation in Asia and now, the Americas. Slidejoy is the perfect opportunity for us to diversify our geographic footprint…”