Norway’s Telenor is set to acquire around 95 per cent of US marketing technology firm Tapad for $360 million to gain “a solid position within advertising and marketing technology and strengthen its data analytics capabilities significantly.”

Tapad is a New York-based startup established in 2010 by Norwegian entrepreneur and CEO Are Traasdahl.

Traasdahl, along with co-founder and CTO Dag Liodden, will retain the remaining 5 per cent stake.

The company claims to deliver “unified cross-device marketing technology solutions” that give a “holistic view” of consumers across devices and screens, including smartphones, tablets and smart TVs.

Its device management solution, The Tapad Device Graph, assimilates billions of data points from different devices and platforms, and then helps users to measure audiences across all their devices.

The company has approximately 160 employees, with offices in 13 cities in the US and Europe.

Within its media business, Tapad has some 160 US brands as its customers and more than 50 data technology licensing partnerships.

“I believe significant value can be created from applying marketing technology to improve the digital capabilities of our core telecom business. This will improve our understanding of customer behaviour, and supports building a platform for other business areas,’’ said Sigve Brekke, Telenor’s CEO.

For 2015, Tapad is expected to report revenue of $57 million, growing at 70 per cent compared to 2014, and an EBITDA loss of $12 million. In 2016, revenues are estimated to increase to around $90 million. Telenor expects Tapad to reach EBITDA break-even in 2017.

Tapad will operate as a standalone company and Traasdahl and Liodden will maintain their positions.

Telenor said in a statement it believes the digital advertising market is growing fast thanks to mobile advertising and the US digital advertising market is the most developed in terms of market size and competence.

What’s more, as emerging advertising markets are still small and underdeveloped, the operator says there are “solid growth opportunities” in both Tapad’s established markets and within Telenor’s footprint in emerging markets.

The main sellers are Traasdahl and his investment company Spring Capital, FirstMark Capital, Firsthand Technology, Avalon Ventures, WPP and Metamorphic Ventures.

The closing of the transaction is expected in the first quarter of 2016, subject to regulatory approvals.

In a more high-profile move, Verizon bought AOL, the digital content and advertising platform provider, in a deal worth around $4.4 billion, in May last year.

The US operator said the acquisition would further drive its LTE and OTT video strategy, and bolster its mobile advertising platform.