4Mads, a small, San Francisco-based adtech startup launched at the beginning of the year, has been acquired by mobile marketer InSequent, whose main product involves the creation of instant mobile websites from existing desktop versions. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but 4Mads had previously raised over $1 million in funding from angel investors including Roger Lang, Andy Laursen, David Roux, Jon Staenberg and others.
The company also had over 3,000 customers, and was set to hit profitability in December.
With the acquisition, InSequent will now add display advertising to their marketing suite which, in addition to the desktop-to-mobile site conversions, also includes short codes, QR codes, and SMS marketing tools. The two companies will remain separated until next year, but InSequent will offer the advertising platform to users who create mobile sites.
Previously, 4Mads had targeted small-to-medium sized businesses, who couldn’t afford to hire an ad agency to design their mobile and web advertisements. 4Mads offered an alternative solution, with a DIY toolkit and set of tutorials that allowed these business owners to make their own advertisements. The company claimed it took only 10 minutes or less to build ads on its platform, which also offered over 100 animation effects in both Flash and HTML5, allowing its ads to work on both web and mobile.
InSequent, founded in late 2009 by Mark Porter, has partnerships with McClatchy, Digital First Media, Halifax Media Group (formerly the NY Times group), Morris, Deseret, Zenergy, Evening Post Interactive, Guarantee Digital and others. The company is backed by OpenAir Equity Partners and angels including Richard Chino and Jason Fairchild.