Private equity firm Blackstone has announced that it has agreed a deal to acquire mobile and in-app advertising company Vungle in one of the largest sales of a start-up in UK history.

No official figure has been given for the deal, but figures are thought to be north of $750m, making it the fourth largest sum paid for a start-up in the UK. 

Vungle was started by UCL School of Management Alumnus Zain Jaffer back in 2010 when he was studying the MSc Entrepreneurship programme (formerly MSc Technology Entrepreneurship). 

The company has been at the forefront of the digital ad transformation, enabling in-app advertising and mobile advertising to grow significantly. Vungle currently works with more than 60,000 apps and serves over four billion ad views per month on more than one billion unique devices worldwide.

Upon the announcement, Jaffer said: “It is extremely gratifying for me to see our early vision, execution and the hard work of so many talented people rewarded like this. From Day 1, Vungle has been at the forefront of the changing advertising landscape. Today, companies of all sizes, and in all industries, are utilizing in-app video ads as an integral part of their customer acquisition strategies.”

Blackstone principal Sachin Bavishi said in a statement. “As a best-in-class performance marketing platform, Vungle represents a key growth engine for the mobile app ecosystem. Our investment will help deliver on the company’s tremendous growth potential and we look forward to partnering with management to extend Vungle’s strength across mobile gaming and other performance brands.”