Toronto’s AppHero acquired by Fuse Powered

AppHero is known for its app that directs users towards other apps they might like based on their existing behaviour. And for its teenaged founder.AppHero, the Toronto-based meta-app company, has been acquired by app publishing firm Fuse Powered.

AppHero is primarily known for its own app that directs users towards other apps they might like based on their existing behaviour. It was also incidentally known for its teenage CEO, Jordan Satok, who occasionally let slip that he didn’t use Facebook himself even though his business is largely built on the habits of the social media giant’s users. He remains the youngest entrepreneur to raise venture capital in Canada.

The acquisition will secure AppHero’s proprietary algorithm and software for the purposes of tailor serving ads to mobile app users on Fuse Powered’s Fuseboxx platform.

A statement on AppHero’s website announcing the acquisition outlines the reasoning behind the takeover.

“A few months ago, the team was brainstorming the future of app discovery and noticed a shift, from people discovering apps in the top charts with app discovery services like AppHero, to people discovering apps from ads. We spent some time learning about the mobile advertising landscape, and realized that the technology we’ve spent years working on is perfectly aligned to make mobile advertising dramatically more efficient.”

Folding AppHero into its own platform will allow Fuse Powered and Fuseboxx to better target users based on interest, in the hope of ratcheting up rate of conversion. AppHero enjoyed a good run under Satok’s regime, picking up accolades along with venture capital funding and appearances on American network TV.

At one point, Satok was feeling high-minded enough about the free nature of AppHero to say, “I feel that doing paid app placements would be the same as someone paying for a blog post. It’s completely unethical. But for some reason, other services have decided to stoop to this level. We’re focused just on the consumer discovery side of the problem, and aren’t letting advertisers get in the way.”

AppHero was acquired by Fuse Powered for an undisclosed sum.

_______________