Rewards platform Perk.com acquires Corona Labs for $2.3M

Corona Labs is an app development platform with 300k developers who will include Perk in their apps

The gameification of the Internet has always fascinated me, partially because it never seems to have truly caught on. The idea sounds great, but for some reason consumers don't seem to take to the idea. Perhaps the solution to that is to make rewards ubiquitous, meaning have them available through every app so that they just become commonplace.

Perk.com, which provides a rewards platform targeting consumers by giving them rewards for their daily mobile and internet activities, is looking to expand its reach to many more apps, and has agreed to purchase mobile app development platform Corona Labs, it was announced on Monday. 

Under the terms of the transaction Perk will pay CAD $2.0 million (approx. $1.5 million) on closing of the transaction. The company will then pay an additional CAD $1.0 million (approx. USD $0.8 million) over the next 12 months, for a total of $2.3 million.

This is the second time that the company has been purchased in just over a year; it was previously acquired by Fuse Powered in the beginning of November of 2014, which has now decided to unload it to Perk.

Corona Labs operates Corona SDK, which allows developers to create cross-platform applications, games and eBooks for iOS, Android, Kindle Fire, and NOOK. It has a community of over 300,000 developers worldwide, and apps created with Corona have been downloaded more than 60 million times within the last year alone and reach over 4 million users daily.

The Austin, Texas-based Perk, meanwhile, offers Perk Points, a digital reward, which can be redeemed for gift cards and cash. Members can earn Perk Points through activities that include shopping, watching videos, and playing social games. Perk currently owns and operates 12 mobile applications allowing members to earn Perk Points, and over 21 million points have been rewarded so far. 

So what does it want with Corona Labs? According to Ted Hastings, CEO of Perk, he plans to integrate his company;s rewards model and monetization solution into the Corona platform to "make it part of the infrastructure from day one of a new app launch." 

Basically, it will allow developers on the Corona Labs platform to allow its users to earn Perk Points right off the bat.

This is actually Perk's second acquisition in less than a week to expand its rewards program. Last week itpurchased SuperRewards, a direct payments and performance advertising platform.

"It is a good deal for Perk as it gives Perk the ability to quickly reach a wider mobile audience for Perk's Appsaholic and monetization platform.  It is a good path for Corona as they are teamed up with a mobile rewards, monetization and development company that intends to invest in the growth of the Corona platform," Hastings told me.

For Corona Labs, becoming part of Perk means access to more resources, as well as an influx of new developers onto the platform.

“We built Corona with a vision to be the market leading cross platform mobile development platform. Combining with Perk brings new investment for the platform from an organization that started as mobile app developers and had first hand experience with the power of the Corona platform in building its own apps," Walter Luh, Founder and Creator of Corona, said in a statement. 

"We will be able to further our vision and provide our developers with an out of the box monetization solution and rewards program. Our team is excited about the partnership and believes the shared interest of the two companies will quicken the process of us reaching our long term goals.”

Founded in 2008, the Palo Alto-based Corona Labs had raised $3 million in venture funding from Merus Capital and Western Technology Investment.

Corona will continue to operate out of its Palo Alto office with the same team staying on post acquisition.  They will continue to build the Corona platform as well as work on integration between Corona and Perk. Corona's technology will continue to be offered as previously to mobile developers.

"The future of the business will be a continuation of their successful path to this point with additional investment," said Hastings. 

The acquisition is expected to be completed within the first two weeks of December, 2015, subject to the satisfaction of customary closing conditions.

VatorNews has reached out to to Corona Labs for further information about the deal. We will update this story if we learn more. 

(Image source: perk.com)