M&A-related news are relatively rare in Japan’s startup scene, but today we can report that mobile social gaming juggernaut GREE has acquired Tokyo-based ad exchange service Atlantis for 2.2 billion yen ($26 million). The company will be turned into a GREE subsidiary.

Big G says that the acquisition marks their entry into the mobile/smartphone ad business, which has been growing rapidly in Japan in recent months. With the move, GREE also wants to strengthen its recently launched “GREE Platform for smartphone” by which games will be offered to users of Android handsets and iPhones.

In November last year, Atlantis registered 500 million impressions through smartphones across its ad network and says it sees this number increasing by 10-20% monthly. At 45 billion, the number of impressions served on all mobile phones in Japan (during August 2010) is significantly higher.

Atlantis was founded in 2007 and currently employs 15 people.

Via TechCrunch Japan

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Dr. Serkan Toto is a German based in Tokyo. Like us, he is passionate about introducing Japanese IT to the rest of the world. Full-time, Serkan works as an independent web industry consultant for hedge funds, venture capital companies and start-ups worldwide. He is also a writer for mega tech blog network TechCrunch, covering Japan-related technology and web trends. This is Serkan's website. Follow Serkan on Twitter here.

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