Moloco
Moloco is a machine-learning advertising technology company that helps mobile apps and e-commerce businesses buy and monetize traffic with its own ML-driven ad platform.
Last updated October 30, 2026
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Overview
Moloco is an American advertising technology company built around machine learning. It was founded in 2013 by Ikkjin Ahn, a former Google engineer, and is headquartered in Redwood City, California, with additional offices in markets such as South Korea, Japan, the United Kingdom, India and Singapore. Rather than acting as a traditional ad network, Moloco positions itself as a performance advertising platform: it supplies demand-side tools that let app developers and e-commerce merchants bid for and acquire users across mobile inventory, and supply-side monetization technology that lets app publishers and platforms turn their own traffic into advertising revenue. The company's core asset is its machine-learning engine, which it markets under the Moloco Cloud DSP and Moloco Ads brands for advertisers, and Moloco Monetization / Moloco SDK for publishers. Its pitch is that first-party data plus deep-learning models can outperform legacy rule-based targeting, particularly for app-install and in-app purchase campaigns. Moloco has become especially prominent in the mobile gaming and app ecosystem, where it competes with larger platforms such as Meta, Google and Unity, and it has expanded into retail media and commerce advertising as retailers look to build their own ad businesses on top of their first-party shopper data. Moloco remains a privately held venture-backed company. It has raised capital from investors including Samsung Ventures and has been reported among the more closely watched independent ad-tech firms in the mobile performance space. Its business spans advertiser demand, publisher monetization and, more recently, retail media infrastructure, giving it a position across both sides of the mobile advertising marketplace.
History
Moloco was founded in 2013 by Ikkjin Ahn, an engineer who had previously worked at Google. The company was conceived around a simple but demanding thesis: that deep learning, trained on large volumes of first-party and behavioral data, could outperform the rule-based and heuristic targeting that dominated mobile advertising at the time. Early on, Moloco operated as a performance marketing business, buying mobile traffic on behalf of app advertisers and using its own models to optimize for installs and in-app events. As its models matured, Moloco productized the technology. It launched Moloco Cloud DSP, a self-serve demand-side platform that let advertisers run their own machine-learning-optimized campaigns rather than relying on Moloco's managed service. In parallel, the company built Moloco Monetization, a supply-side offering that lets app publishers and platforms monetize their inventory using Moloco's prediction engine, often through an SDK integration. This two-sided structure — demand tools for advertisers and monetization tools for publishers — became the backbone of the business. Moloco's growth tracked the broader expansion of the mobile app economy, and the company became particularly associated with mobile gaming, where user acquisition is intensely performance-driven. It established offices in major ad markets including South Korea, Japan, the United Kingdom, India and Singapore, reflecting the global distribution of mobile app developers. The company attracted venture investment, with Samsung Ventures among its backers, and remained privately held. In the 2020s Moloco moved into retail media, arguing that retailers and marketplaces with rich first-party commerce data could run their own advertising businesses using Moloco's machine-learning infrastructure. This positioned the company alongside a wave of retail media networks launched by retailers seeking new revenue streams. Throughout its history Moloco has positioned itself as an independent alternative to the walled gardens of Meta, Google and other large platforms, competing on model performance and on the ability to work with advertisers' and publishers' own data.
- 2013
Moloco founded by Ikkjin Ahn.
Launch of Moloco Cloud DSP, a self-serve machine-learning demand-side platform for advertisers.
Launch of Moloco Monetization for app publishers and platforms.
Expansion into retail media infrastructure for retailers and marketplaces.
Products and positioning
Independent, machine-learning-first performance advertising and monetization platform for mobile apps, games and commerce businesses.
Moloco Cloud DSP
Self-serve demand-side platform that uses Moloco's machine-learning models to optimize mobile user acquisition campaigns.
Moloco Ads
Performance advertising offering for app developers and commerce advertisers.
Moloco Monetization
Supply-side monetization technology letting publishers and platforms earn ad revenue from their own inventory.
Moloco SDK
Integration kit used by publishers to connect their apps to Moloco's monetization engine.
Recent events
Reported
GrowthLoop launches end-to-end commerce media network solution with adtech integrations[2]
GrowthLoop announced the expansion of its composable commerce media offering, introducing embedded capabilities with adtech partners The Trade Desk, Moloco, and Audience Acuity. The end-to-end platform combines onsite and offsite activation, audience intelligence, and closed-loop measurement into a single solution for retail and commerce media teams.
Reported
MOLOCO launches Dynamic Creative[3]
MOLOCO announced the launch of Dynamic Creative, a service that designs, deploys, and optimizes personalized ad creative for programmatic advertising.
Reported
MOLOCO receives TAG Global Brand Safety certification[4]
MOLOCO announced that it met the standards required to join the Trustworthy Accountability Group's Global Brand Safety Certification Program. TAG said MOLOCO had completed its global audit and demonstrated compliance with the program's guidelines.
Reported
MOLOCO announces general availability of MOLOCO Cloud[5]
MOLOCO announced the general availability of MOLOCO Cloud, an automated buying platform for advertising inventory across programmatic exchanges and in-app ad networks.
Reported
MOLOCO launches MOLOCO Cloud[6]
MOLOCO announced the launch of MOLOCO Cloud, a self-serve programmatic advertising platform for mobile marketers. The platform provides campaign data and management tools; MOLOCO was accepting applications for its beta, with general availability expected later in 2020.
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