Acquisitions

LINK Mobility History and Acquisitions

2000: Jens Rugseth founded Ememess AS, a content warehouse with mobile services.

2001: Zapdance AS founded focused on services such as SMS quiz and SMS chat in the UK.

2003: Major deal with the Norwegian operator Chess. Decided to focus more on the Nordic market. More focus on entertainment services such as ringtones and logos.

2004: Zapdance AS and Ememess AS merger.

2004-2007: Focused on selling in-house content and in-house services through partners. Business in Norway was increasing and business outside Norway was decreasing.

2007: Company decision to leave the content business and focus on Business-to-Consumer (B2C) services. Acquired LINK Messaging AB (formerly Telenor LINK AB). The company name was changed to LINK Mobility.

2007-2010: LINK Mobility AS: The focus shifted from content business to B2C as a technical provider, assisting customers to enhance sales through the mobile channel. LINK Mobility AB: Continued its business, but with a broader product portfolio.

2011: Acquired Aspiro Mobile Solution AS, Aspiro Mobile Solutions AB and Aspiro Mobile Solutions SIA, companies focusing on payment services and SMS.

A group structure with LINK Mobility Group Holding ASA as the parent company owning all the shares in LINK Mobility AS, LINK Mobility AB and LINK Mobility SIA, was established

2014: Acquired InTouch from Eniro Norway AS in March, for a total consideration of NOK 32.9 million. InTouch serves individual, business and financial information, provided from Eniro Norway AS.

The Group acquired PSWinCom AS in December, a supplier of mobile solutions for messaging and payment, for a total consideration of NOK 85.5 million.

2015: PSWinCom AS merged with LINK Mobility AS.

Acquired Fivestarday AB in May, a Swedish company developing mobile and digital solutions for the B2B market, for a total consideration of SEK 2.1 million, and later merged with LINK Mobility Group AB.

In June, LINK acquired Cool Group ApS, a large supplier of B2B mobile communication in Denmark, for a total consideration of DKK 75million. LINK entered the Danish market.

2016: Acquired Responsfabrikken with fully owned subsidiaries Wireless Factory ApS in Denmark, one of Denmark’s large providers of mobile marketing and digital solution services.

Acquired Linus, a major provider of both mobile messaging and mobile communication solutions in the Norwegian market for total consideration of approximately NOK 66.5 million.

Acquired the Labyrintti group companies, consisting of Labyrintti Media Oy and Labyrintti International Oy (together referred to as Labyrintti), which provides B2C mobile messaging services in Finland, for a total consideration of EUR 11 million.

LINK acquired Whatever Mobile, comprising of Whatever Mobile GmbH, GfMB Gesellschaft für Mobiles Bezahlen mbH and Whatever SIM GmbH, which provides mobile messaging services in Germany at a total consideration of EUR 20.1 million.

LINK, through its fully owned Swedish subsidiary, LINK Mobility AB, acquired Globalmouth, which further strengthen LINK’s position as B2C mobile messaging and mobile solutions in the Scandinavian markets for a total consideration of SEK 12.2 million.

2017: LINK acquired Netmessage (France)

SMSAPI/Comvision (Poland)

VoiceCom (Bulgaria)

Global Messaging Solutions (Spain)

Vianett AS (Norway)

Didimo (Spain)

2018: LINK acquired SMS.it (Italy)

Totalconnect/Archynet (Italy)

Simple SMS (Austria)

Horisen Messaging (Switzerland)

LINK was acquired by Abry Partners and delisted from the Oslo Stock Exchange.

LINK acquired SeeMe/Dream Interactive (Hungary)

Hay Systems (UK) and Multiwizz (France)

2019: LINK acquired Spot-Hit/Evawin and Inwave (France)

TeraComm Group (Bulgaria)

Netsize (France)

2020: LINK was relisted on the Oslo Stock Exchange in October with Abry Partners remaining a major shareholder.

In November, LINK announced its largest acquisition to date with WebSMS in Austria for an enterprise value of EUR 53.8 million. WebSMS holds an MNO license in Austria and is the market leader with more than 5.000 enterprise clients. The company also has significant business in Germany and Switzerland.

2021: In February 2021, LINK announced the acquisition of Dutch CPaaS enabler Tismi for an enterprise value of EUR 20 million. Tismi is a provider of telecommunication services and products and holds licensed operator status in 8 European countries. The company’s main business comprises of providing virtual mobile phone numbers, smart traffic routing and signaling services to Enterprise customers and CPaaS providers.

In mid-April, LINK acquired MarketingPlatform in Denmark for an enterprise value of EUR 13 million. MarketingPlatform has developed an omnichannel marketing platform with an integrated customer data platform (CDP) giving customers a unified profile view. The company is established in the Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Peruvian and Spanish markets.

In late April, LINK acquired approximately 81% of AMM S.p.A listed on the AIM list of the Italian Stock Exchange for a market capitalization of approximately EUR 18.7 million. AMM operates within mobile marketing and web advertising and their product offering includes SMS A2P, email services, and chatbots. LINK became a leading CPaaS provider in the Italian market with the acquisition.

In mid-June, LINK acquired Message Broadcast LLC, headquartered in Newport Beach, California. Message Broadcast operates within large U.S. industry verticals and provides mission-critical notification services to companies such as utilities, health care organizations, and financial institutions. The proprietary Message Broadcast CPaaS platform “EONS” (Emergency Outage Notification System) offers a single engagement platform to design, deploy, and manage customer interactions across all touchpoints with omnichannel orchestration, as well as API-driven communication for email, A2P SMS, and voice services.This acquisition strengthened LINK’s position in the U.S. market, driving our growth strategy as a leading global CPaaS player.

In mid-Novermber, LINK announced the acquisition of the Italian-based NLP/AI Chatbot, Matelab Srl (“Xenioo”). The company’s core offerings are the proprietary advanced conversational AI and NLP-driven software, including conversational chatbot Xenioo, and the customer support software system xDesk. Xenioo currently operates over 22,000 chatbots, handles over 10 million messages monthly, and supports over 260,000 conversations per month. The acquisition enriches LINK’s product portfolio and provides significant upsell opportunities to LINK’s large customer base. This transaction closed in December 2021.

In December, LINK strengthened its self sign-up business by acquiring Spanish-based Altria. Altiria was founded in 2002 and is headquartered in Madrid. As a player in the A2P SMS market in Spain, with some activity in other Spanish speaking countries, the company provides web-based solutions which handle millions of messages per month through direct connections with national operators.The acquisition complements LINK’s current business in Spain and provides multiple upsell opportunities to Altiria customers