ironSource

ironsource was founded in Tel Aviv in 2010 by Tomer Bar-Zeev, Omer Kaplan, Roi Schnaps, and Arnon Harish. The company built a business platform focused on the app economy — specifically helping mobile app developers grow their apps and monetize them. ironSource went public on the New York Stock Exchange in June 2021 via a SPAC merger with Thoma Bravo Advantage, trading under the ticker IS. In 2022, Unity Software and ironSource announced a merger; the all-stock deal closed in November 2022, making ironSource a wholly owned subsidiary of Unity Technologies.

ironsource's primary business was a mobile monetization and user acquisition platform serving mobile app developers and publishers. On the monetization side, its mediation platform — Supersonic (later LevelPlay) — allowed developers to manage and optimize in-app advertising across multiple ad networks from a single dashboard. On the growth side, its platform enabled advertisers to run campaigns to acquire new users for their apps. The company's customers were primarily mobile game developers and app publishers, ranging from large studios to independent developers.

The flagship mediation and ad monetization product was rebranded as LevelPlay. ironSource also operated Supersonic Studios, an internal mobile game publishing and development label that worked with independent developers to publish hyper-casual games. The company's Aura platform targeted a separate segment: it delivered app recommendations and content to Android device owners through partnerships with device manufacturers and mobile operators, at the moment a user first sets up a new device.

Direct competitors in mobile ad mediation and user acquisition included AppLovin, Digital Turbine (in the device-level distribution segment), and Google's AdMob. AppLovin was ironSource's most direct rival across both user acquisition and mediation, and the two companies were frequently compared by mobile developers choosing a primary mediation stack. Following the Unity merger in late 2022, the combined entity faced AppLovin as its primary competitor in the mobile gaming ad ecosystem.

ironsource was headquartered in Tel Aviv, with its founders and core engineering and product teams based in Israel. The company was a significant employer in the Israeli tech ecosystem before its acquisition by Unity. R&D was concentrated in Israel, while go-to-market and business development teams operated from offices in additional international locations including the United States.