Entrepreneur Dylan Collins
Irish e-commerce and video games supremo Dylan Collins has expanded his European youth-focused SuperAwesome empire into the US after acquiring Mobigirl Media, a mobile ad network for girls based in Los Angeles, for an undisclosed sum.
Founded by Jennifer Noonan, Cara Hall and Alison Bradley, MobiGirl Media is the only COPPA compliant mobile ad network for girls 6-16, reaching girls via highly-targeted campaigns on mobile and tablet devices.
Previously focused on the UK and European markets, the deal represents SuperAwesome’s first foray into the US market.
Founded in 2012, SuperAwesome’s kid-friendly marketing ecosystem has more than 60 content partners, as well as owning a range of kids’ properties, including Swapit, Box of Awesome and SuperAwesome Club. The company’s channels reach 20m kids each month and clients include hundreds of kids’ brands, such as Disney, Nickelodeon, Warner Bros, Nintendo and others.
“We’re super excited with SuperAwesome’s acquisition of MobiGirl Media,” said Jennifer Noonan, CEO of MobiGirl Media.
“When we created MobiGirl Media, it was always our hope to grow the company internationally and team up with leaders in the field of kids’ digital discovery. Dylan and the team have been fantastic to work with and SuperAwesome is the ideal landing place for MobiGirl Media.”
Out-of-the-box thinking
Collins is one of Ireland’s most successful entrepreneurs, embarking on his start-up career while at Trinity College Dublin with Phorest, which is still in business today, and games middleware firm Demonware, which is also still active. Activision acquired Demonware in 2007 for an estimated US$15m.
Collins’ SuperAwesome spawned out of his Box of Awesome foray, which is now just one of the groups in the SuperAwesome family.
The business is growing organically and has not yet raised any venture funding.
“We’re profitable and will probably grow four times this year on our own steam,” he told Siliconrepublic.com.
“The US is definitely part of our focus this year – the opportunity there is obviously large. Because so many of our clients are global players (companies such as Disney, Warner Bros, and Hasbro) we’ve got a lot of pent-up demand for our platform in the US.
“Expanding our mobile reach via MobiGirl is just the beginning, you’ll be seeing a lot more activity there from us this year,” Collins said.
