Liftoff swings to $87m profit as US revenue climbs 62%

Liftoff Mobile reported net income of $86.7 million for the third quarter of 2026 on November 12, 2026, against a net loss of $5.7 million in the same quarter a year earlier and a loss of $4.2 million in the second quarter, the period in which it listed on Nasdaq. Revenue for the three months to September 30 rose 32% to $237.5 million, about $16 million above the top of the company's own guidance, and revenue billed to customers in the United States climbed 62% to $98.8 million. The Redwood City, California company, which sells user acquisition and ad monetization services to mobile apps, set fourth-quarter revenue guidance of $244 million to $249 million. Its shares closed the regular session at $18.71 and rose 15.02% to $21.52 in after-hours trading, according to Investing.com - a level still below the $23.00 price of its June initial public offering.

In Short

Liftoff, which sells ads that help mobile apps find new users and earn money from advertising, made a profit of $86.7 million between July and September 2026 on revenue of $237.5 million, 32% more than a year earlier. Most of the extra revenue came from customers billed in the United States, where sales rose 62%, while Asia-Pacific and Europe grew about 17% each, and $15.8 million of the quarter's pre-tax profit came from accounting gains linked to a lower value for Liftoff's shares. The company expects growth of 26% to 28% in the last quarter of 2026, and it still owes $1.43 billion to lenders.

The quarter in numbers

The figures come from the earnings release, filed as an exhibit to a Form 8-K, and from the quarterly report on Form 10-Q. Sequentially, revenue rose 8% from $220 million in the second quarter. Liftoff calls almost all of it Core Advertising revenue, which it defines as revenue from its current advertising platforms, "predominantly powered by Cortex-backed demand solutions." Core Advertising revenue was $236.7 million, up 33% from $178.5 million, and accounted for approximately 100% of total revenue, according to the 10-Q. That share was approximately 79% in 2023 and 99% in 2025.

Adjusted EBITDA, the profit measure Liftoff uses to manage the business and pay executives, rose 45% to $144.9 million from $100.3 million. The margin widened to 61% from 56% a year earlier and from 60% in the second quarter. Chief financial officer Tarek Kutrieh said on the call that adjusted EBITDA "exceeded the high end of guidance by $17 million, and margin outperformed by 3 percentage points versus the high end of guidance." Working back from the $16 million revenue beat and the $17 million EBITDA beat, the top of Liftoff's earlier third-quarter range sat at roughly $222 million of revenue and $128 million of adjusted EBITDA, according to PPC Land's calculation.

Income from operations rose 117% to $103.8 million, or 44% of revenue against 27% a year earlier. Revenue rose by $58.0 million while total costs and operating expenses rose by $2.0 million, to $133.8 million.

Diluted earnings per share were $0.47, on 182.5 million weighted-average diluted shares. Basic earnings per share were $0.51.

The release's own highlights table, rounded to millions, sets the quarter against both the prior quarter and the prior year:

Over nine months, revenue reached $662.7 million, up 35% from $491.6 million. Net income for the period was $131.8 million, against a loss of $25.6 million, and adjusted EBITDA was $397.3 million, a 60% margin, compared with $263.3 million and 54%.

Infrastructure as a share of revenue

The 10-Q's segment note breaks costs down differently from the income statement. Infrastructure costs rose 14% to $28.5 million from $25.0 million. As a share of revenue, they fell to 12.0% from 13.9%, according to PPC Land's calculation from the segment figures. Bidding fees rose to $7.3 million from $6.9 million.

Kutrieh tied the margin gain to that ratio. "This included lower infrastructure costs as a percentage of revenue, driven by our machine learning investments generating revenue growth that outpaced the added cost," he said. Asked by Ken Arthur of Wolfe Research about margins in 2027, he went further. "Infrastructure costs continue to decline as a percentage of revenue. There's really no structural reason that that dynamic will change," Kutrieh said.

Cash

Net cash provided by operating activities over the trailing 12 months was $303.2 million, up 107% from $146.2 million. Free cash flow over the same period, defined by Liftoff as operating cash flow minus purchases and capitalization of property, equipment and software, was $249.3 million, up 158% from $96.6 million. For the quarter alone, Kutrieh put free cash flow at "$93 million in the third quarter, compared with $28 million in the prior year," with capital expenditure of "$14 million in the quarter, or approximately 6% of revenue."

Where the $87 million came from

The swing to profit was large, and not all of it came from selling advertising. Pre-tax income was $94.0 million. Two items within it were non-cash gains: a $14.4 million gain on the revaluation of a contingent consideration liability and a $1.4 million gain on the revaluation of a post-conversion earnout share liability. Together they came to $15.8 million, or 17% of pre-tax income, according to PPC Land's calculation. Both are excluded from adjusted EBITDA.

The contingent consideration is an earnout of up to $130.9 million owed to certain former preferred stockholders of a business Liftoff acquired, a liability the 10-Q associates with a prior business combination. The 10-Q sets out the payout terms: "The amount payable depends on the cash that the Company's primary private-equity sponsor (the 'Sponsor') receives in respect of its shares relative to its invested capital and is determined when the Sponsor disposes of all of its shares or, if earlier, when that cash reaches the level at which the maximum is payable. Beginning one year after the IPO, the maximum is also deemed earned if that cash, plus the market value of the shares the Sponsor still holds, reaches that level." The 10-Q attributes the third-quarter gain to the share price. The gain "was primarily driven by a decrease in our equity value during the three months ended September 30, 2026," according to the filing. Liftoff's stock closed at $15.80 on September 30, the 10-Q states, 31% below the $23.00 IPO price, according to PPC Land's calculation.

The mechanism works in both directions. In the third quarter of 2025, when the company's equity value rose, the same line produced a $13.2 million loss. In the second quarter of 2026 it produced a $17.5 million loss. The fair value of the liability stood at $80.9 million at September 30.

Two other lines helped. Net interest expense fell 21% to $25.0 million from $31.5 million, after Liftoff used IPO proceeds to prepay $409.2 million of its term loan on June 29, 2026. Income tax expense was $7.3 million, an effective rate of 7.7%, compared with 23.1% for the nine months. The second quarter's net loss had absorbed $23.5 million of tax, $28.2 million of stock-based compensation and a $7.4 million loss on debt extinguishment, according to the reconciliation in the earnings release.

Stock-based compensation in the third quarter was $13.5 million. Of that, $9.8 million related to awards granted to two executives in 2023 that became probable of vesting at the IPO, according to the 10-Q.

The United States did most of the work

Liftoff discloses revenue by geography, based on billing location rather than where an ad is shown. The third-quarter split was lopsided.

The United States added $37.7 million of the $58.0 million increase in total revenue, about 65%, and its share of revenue rose to 41.6% from 34.0%, according to PPC Land's calculation from the 10-Q table. The filing describes "nearly 60% of our revenue coming from outside of the Americas for both the three and nine months ended September 30, 2026." In the third quarter, the figure was 57.3%, by the same calculation.

The quarterly table also shows a change in pace across regions. Subtracting the third quarter from the nine-month figures gives first-half 2026 growth of 50% in the United States, 42% in Asia Pacific and 15% in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, according to PPC Land's calculation. In the third quarter, US growth accelerated to 62% while Asia Pacific slowed to 17%.

On the call, chief executive Jeremy Bondy said the company "saw strength across key app categories, including social media, entertainment, and finance," and that "more than half of our advertiser revenue during the quarter continued to come from advertisers outside of gaming." He also pointed to sport. "Last quarter, we noted how events like the FIFA World Cup bring high-intent users into the mobile app ecosystem. In Q3, that momentum carried well past the tournament, as advertisers kept investing to engage those users into the NFL season and beyond," Bondy said.

How a transaction works, according to the 10-Q

Liftoff's business model is transactional. "In each ad transaction that flows through our technology platform, we retain a portion of media spending as revenue, with the remainder passed to supply partners," according to the 10-Q. The company reports revenue on a net basis because it acts as an agent rather than owning the inventory. Advertisers buy against targets such as return on ad spend, and Liftoff routes spending through its own supply side platform and third-party supply. The filing describes the sequence in these steps:

1. Publishers supply inventory. "Publishers integrate our software development kit (SDK) to efficiently monetize their ad inventory, expanding the supply that fuels advertiser demand and spending on our platform."
2. Advertisers set objectives. Mobile app advertisers pursue "return on ad spend ('ROAS') or similar profitability-focused metrics." The 10-Q states: "Advertisers set campaign objectives, and we optimize advertising spending across our own supply side platform (SSP) and third-party supply to maximize performance against those objectives."
3. An action or impression completes. "The Company recognizes revenue at a point in time when the agreed upon action is completed or when the ad is displayed to a user."
4. The price is set net of publisher payouts. The transaction price is "a factor of the number of completions of agreed upon actions, such as user installations and impressions, or advertisements displayed and the contractually agreed upon price per advertising unit with the customers, less consideration payable to publishers or third parties providing access to publisher-owned ad inventory."
5. Volumes are settled monthly. "The number of advertisements delivered and completions of agreed upon actions is determined at the end of each month."
6. Advertisers pay. Liftoff's terms and conditions "generally stipulate payment terms of 30 days following the end of the month in which the services are invoiced."
7. Spending expands when targets are met. "When we help customers meet or exceed targets, they typically sustain and increase their spending, which in turn expands transaction volume on our platform."

The contracts governing that flow are short. "Substantially all of the Company's contracts with customers have contractual terms of less than one year and are fully cancellable at any time or upon a short notice," according to the 10-Q.

Who is spending

Existing customers accounted for 55% of year-over-year Core Advertising growth in the quarter, and new customers acquired over the previous 12 months for 45%. For the nine months, the split was 71% and 29%. Kutrieh said the third-quarter mix was "pretty similar to what we had the prior quarter" and added: "I think it's a good expectation that over time, we should see the majority of our growth come from existing customers."

The number of customers contributing more than $100,000 of Core Advertising revenue over a trailing 12 months reached 396, up from 362 a year earlier, an increase of 9%, according to PPC Land's calculation. No single customer accounted for more than 10% of revenue in the third quarter, compared with one customer at approximately 10% in the third quarter of 2025. Concentration in receivables has fallen: one customer accounted for approximately 14% of accounts receivable at September 30, down from 26% at December 31, 2025.

What changed inside Cortex

Cortex is Liftoff's internally developed neural network prediction model. According to the 10-Q, the company moved from "legacy linear regression models" to Cortex between the fourth quarter of 2023 and early 2025. Bondy described the model's job in one line: "Cortex decides which ad to show, to whom, and at what price, making approximately 1 billion predictions every second."

Bondy named three changes made during the quarter. The first concerned apps that earn money from advertising rather than purchases. "For example, during the quarter, we enhanced our model's ability to predict the value of users who generate revenue by watching ads inside of mobile apps," he said. The second was a change to how the model is trained. "We also updated our data training architecture, allowing Cortex to learn from significantly more data than before," Bondy said.

The third concerned memory. Asked by Matt Swanson of RBC whether the architecture change meant more data or better use of existing data, Bondy said: "We also changed how Cortex remembers. Cortex is now learning from a longer history of user behavior, and it still gives the most weight to what it saw this week. This is really important because it can now tell an enduring pattern from a real shift in behavior."

Alicia Reese of Wedbush Securities asked whether apps that monetize only through in-app purchases were starting to add ads. Bondy said the updated model "can piece together the economic events that are driving the value of a user, from purchases to ads viewed to subscriptions." He offered an example: "Someone can spend nothing in a game and still generate meaningful ad revenue while also being a valuable shopper in a retail app." In his prepared remarks he cited cross-category data as well: "In a past study, we observed approximately 30% better gaming prediction accuracy from adding non-gaming purchase data."

How much of the quarter came from these changes? Ralph Schackart of William Blair asked exactly that. Kutrieh declined to split it out. "Historically, market growth and self-learning have supported our baseline growth. We've had periodic upside from discrete model improvements, but the mix is going to vary quarter to quarter, and it's difficult to disaggregate them because they really blend together," he said.

The Axon question

Rivals' model upgrades came up directly. Matt Cost of Morgan Stanley noted that publicly traded peers had "in the past year or so, had some really huge step-ups in the performance of their ad models," and asked: "should we expect Axon 3.0 or Vector-style major steps up in the improvement of Cortex?" The references were to AppLovin's Axon engine and Unity Software's Vector platform. A week earlier, AppLovin had reported third-quarter revenue of $2.18 billion, up 55%, after a partial rollout of a new generation of models that its chief executive compared in technical complexity with Axon 2.0. AppLovin's own 10-Q lists Liftoff Mobile among its competitors. On those figures, AppLovin's quarterly revenue was about nine times Liftoff's, according to PPC Land's calculation.

Bondy did not promise a comparable leap. "Our peers have delivered strong quarters, and product cycles and customer mixes differ across the businesses. It is very encouraging that all of us are growing at such a rapid rate. It is clearly not a zero-sum game, and there clearly is room for multiple scaled players," he said. On the architecture change, he added: "It is very, very early, and the first results are encouraging, but we see it as a base."

Benjamin Black of Deutsche Bank recalled Bondy's earlier claim that Cortex had cut the time for a campaign to reach optimal performance to about a day. Bondy repeated the claim, citing the ability "to compress the time for exploration from multiple weeks on average to a day," but said faster learning was not the main prize. "You certainly could continue to optimize from 24 hours to less. However, the real key to unlocking much more growth in this industry and this multi-year catch-up that we talk about, that we are so excited about, is continuing to get more precision in terms of what are the types of qualities of users that are accretive to a given app," Bondy said.

Google, AI search and the app funnel

The exchange most directly relevant to search marketers came from Drew Daniels of Wells Fargo Securities, asking on behalf of Alec Brondolo. His question concerned Google's AI Overviews. "We observed a meaningful increase in the penetration rate of Google AI Overviews during the third quarter, which seems to have driven the degradation of desktop and mobile web traffic. Do you think that contributed to the strong results that you and your mobile ad network peers reported in the quarter?" he asked.

Bondy's answer described a category effect rather than a measured one. "We certainly are beneficiaries as a category of the increased focus on user acquisition through the app environment, and businesses are becoming more and more attuned to the fact that this funnel through Google has changed. I expect there to be more and more disruption to the funnel and for that value to accrue to the app ecosystem because of the fact that the consumer application is an environment where the business itself can own the journey," he said.

PPC Land has tracked the traffic side of this argument. In February 2026, Ahrefs found that AI Overviews reduced the organic click-through rate for position-one results by 58% as of December 2025, based on 300,000 keywords.

Ross Sandler of Barclays pressed the point. Were the beneficiaries companies hurt by falling search traffic, or large direct-response marketers rebalancing budgets? Bondy narrowed the frame first. "Just to clarify the parameters of our business, our customers are apps themselves rather than those who are solving for the purchase of the SKU end-to-end," he said. Spending decisions, he argued, follow returns: "it is absolutely not a zero-sum equation. They will spend as much as they possibly can where it's ROI positive." His expectation was gradual. "I would expect this to be a longitudinal exercise that we observe as LLMs and the search funnels play out," Bondy said.

In his prepared remarks, Bondy framed AI search as a reason for companies to invest in apps. "AI is also changing where search and discovery starts and answering more questions without sending people to a website. That gives businesses more reason to invest in their own apps and build direct relationships with customers," he said. In the question session he named companies: "There are a long list of consumer companies that we have heard report in the last few weeks, like DoorDash, eBay, Spotify, Walmart. They have said some version of this very recently."

He also argued that leisure time is where Liftoff's inventory sits. "AI can draft your email. The game, the match, and the conversation are still yours. That's where our business lives," Bondy said.

AI chat apps themselves, as advertisers or publishers, are not yet a large part of the business. Asked by Bernie McTernan of Needham about agentic shopping and the AI chat category, Bondy said: "This is a fast-growing category, one that I'm personally very engaged with, and it's an opportunity for us on both sides of the platform, but was not yet a significant driver of the quarter for us."

The market Liftoff describes

Much of the call's market sizing came from a study Liftoff commissioned. The 10-Q identifies it as a report from Altman Solon US, LP, commissioned in November 2025, and states that "we have not independently verified this information."

Bondy cited two headline figures. "The gross serviceable addressable market for independent ad tech platforms is estimated to expand to approximately $136 billion by 2030 and is vastly under-monetized relative to other channels, generating only about $0.07 per user hour, compared with about $0.38 for traditional TV, a nearly 6X gap," he said. A total addressable market figure of this kind is a ceiling built on assumptions; the 10-Q lists Altman Solon's, among them continued advertiser investment in the in-app ecosystem and the integration of AI chatbots into the app ecosystem.

The same report supplied a survey result that Bondy summarised as "87% of advertisers have indicated a willingness to scale spend with a partner that is exceeding their KPIs." The 10-Q gives the fuller version: 87% of advertisers surveyed said they would increase spending if their key performance indicators exceeded expectations by 10%, "the lowest threshold surveyed," and 100% said they would do so at 30%.

Bondy cited three other figures. "In the first half of this year alone, new apps released in the Apple App Store doubled versus the prior year to roughly 560,000," he said. Liftoff's SDK, he said, "is integrated in over 160,000 apps," and he described the reach of that footprint: "We're seeing 1.4 billion users on average a day." He described the opportunity as advertising outside the walled gardens, the closed ad businesses that the largest platforms run on their own properties.

Guidance, and a slower fourth quarter

For the fourth quarter, Liftoff guided to revenue of $244 million to $249 million and adjusted EBITDA of $150 million to $154 million, a margin of 61% to 62%. Kutrieh said the revenue range "would represent year-over-year growth of approximately 26%-28%." That compares with 32% in the third quarter and 35% over the first nine months. Kutrieh said the company was "raising what was implied in our previous full-year guidance" for the fourth quarter.

For the full year, the company now expects revenue of $907 million to $912 million, growth of approximately 32% to 33%, and adjusted EBITDA of $547 million to $551 million, a margin of approximately 60%. When Liftoff went public, PPC Land reported that 2025 revenue was $685.7 million and adjusted EBITDA $374.4 million, a 55% margin. Against that base, the 2026 guidance implies adjusted EBITDA growth of 46% to 47%, according to PPC Land's calculation. Kutrieh made the margin comparison himself: "if you look at our FY 2026 guidance, it reflects 5 percentage point margin increase versus 2025."

The guidance excludes model improvements not yet made. "We do not assume additional gains from future discrete model advances whose timing or impact we cannot yet reliably forecast," Kutrieh said.

On seasonality, Bondy said the business "historically has not really followed a particularly discernible seasonal pattern." The 10-Q makes the same claim in more guarded terms: "while individual customers may have seasonal trends, we are not overexposed to any significant intra-year seasonal trends." Liftoff gave no guidance for 2027. "While we haven't delivered 2027 guidance yet, we will," Bondy told McTernan.

From the first quarter of 2027, Liftoff will stop reporting Core Advertising revenue separately. "Revenue outside our core advertising platforms is now de minimis, and total GAAP revenue provides a clear view of the business's performance," according to the earnings release. Until this change, Liftoff presented Core Advertising revenue as a measure that "aligns with the rollout of Cortex in 2023 and is more representative of our growth potential versus total revenue in historical periods," in the words of the same release. Customer metrics will switch to the same base. "We will continue reporting our customer metrics calculated using total GAAP revenue once this change takes place," Kutrieh said.

Debt, hedges and the IPO

Liftoff went public with a heavy balance sheet. PPC Land reported on January 15 that the Blackstone-controlled company had filed for a Nasdaq listing on January 13, 2026, in an offering that could value it at more than $4 billion including debt. When the offering closed on June 5, 2026, Liftoff had sold 21.9 million shares at $23.00, including 2.9 million under the underwriters' over-allotment option, for net proceeds of approximately $472.4 million. An affiliate of the sponsor underwrote 2.7 million of those shares.

Most of the money went to lenders. Principal outstanding on the term loan fell to $1,431.9 million at September 30 from $1,855.0 million at December 31, 2025. Cash and cash equivalents rose to $385.7 million from $133.3 million. Net debt was therefore about $1.05 billion, according to PPC Land's calculation. Kutrieh put net leverage at "2.1 times net debt to trailing 12-month Adjusted EBITDA," down from 2.4 times at the end of the second quarter. "We expect to naturally delever over time as the company continues to grow and produce excess free cash flow," he said.

The term loan matures on September 8, 2032. The credit agreement sets its margin at 4.00% over Term SOFR, and the 10-Q states that rates on both facilities were reduced by 0.25% in connection with the IPO. A $195.5 million revolving credit facility, maturing on September 8, 2030, was undrawn. The filing quotes the main terms that govern repayment. "The Company may prepay the Term Loan Facility in whole or in part at any time without penalty." Scheduled amortization is small: "Payments equal to 0.25% of the aggregate principal balance of the Term Loan Facility as of September 8, 2025, or 1.00% total for any given 12-month period, are due quarterly, beginning March 31, 2026 until the maturity date of September 8, 2032." The agreement "contains certain affirmative and negative covenants, including maintenance of certain debt to earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) ratios as defined in the agreement," and Liftoff was in compliance at September 30. Contractual interest payments due within the next 12 months total $115.2 million, according to the 10-Q's table of material cash requirements, and $662.8 million over the life of the debt.

Liftoff's $850.0 million of interest rate swaps expire on December 31, 2026. In October 2026 it entered into interest rate collars with two counterparties on an aggregate notional amount of $720.0 million, effective from December 31, 2026 through December 31, 2028, for a weighted-average running premium of 0.232% a year. A hypothetical one percentage point rise in rates would add an estimated $5.8 million to annual interest expense, according to the filing. The 10-Q also notes that the company and its equity holders, including funds associated with Blackstone and General Atlantic, "may from time to time seek to repay loans that we have borrowed," potentially "at prices below par."

What else the 10-Q discloses

Several items in the quarterly report did not feature in the release or on the call.

Controls. Liftoff's chief executive and chief financial officer concluded that disclosure controls "were not effective" at September 30 because of a material weakness in IT general controls over applications supporting financial reporting, including segregation of duties. "While management has made improvements to our control environment and IT processes to support our growing operations, the identified material weakness remains unremediated," according to the 10-Q. The company expects remediation work to continue in 2026.

Trading plans. Four officers adopted Rule 10b5-1 trading arrangements during the quarter. Together the plans cover up to 1,360,269 shares, according to PPC Land's calculation. Each plan may expire earlier if all transactions under it are completed.

Executive awards. The number of options that will vest under the 2023 awards to two executives "will be determined by the volume-weighted average stock price measured during the three-month period following the conclusion of the lock-up period in place following the Company's IPO." Up to 2,348,996 options can vest, and $16.4 million of expense remains to be recognized over 0.4 years. Liftoff lowered certain vesting hurdles on March 31, 2026, "in light of the distribution made in 2025."

Sponsor-linked options. A further 18.0 million options granted to senior leadership in September 2025 vest only if the sponsor achieves specified returns. No expense has been recognized; it will begin "the date upon which the Sponsor first receives cash proceeds in respect of its shares."

Share issuance on the earnout. If the earnout is earned in full and the stock is valued at $15.80, Liftoff "would have to issue 1,079,114 shares of common stock" to the former holders of its convertible preferred stock, according to the filing.

The 10-Q reports no material changes to the risk factors in the IPO prospectus and no legal proceedings expected to have a material adverse effect. As of November 5, 2026, Liftoff had 169,444,265 shares outstanding.

Why this matters for app marketers

For advertisers buying app installs, and for publishers selling inventory inside apps, Liftoff is one of the independent ad networks that operate outside the platforms run by Google, Meta and Apple. Its numbers add to a picture PPC Land has assembled through the third-quarter reporting season. In October, AppsFlyer's Performance Index found that ad spend rose on 9 of the top 10 mobile media sources, with Apple Ads and AppLovin leading on iOS and Google Ads leading on Android.

The mechanism Liftoff describes is the same one its larger rival relies on: advertisers set return targets, the model predicts which users will meet them, and budgets expand when it predicts well. "Our job is to help our customers grow more profitably. When they do, they invest more with us," Bondy said. Contracts are cancellable at short notice, so that relationship can also run in reverse.

Growth is guided lower for the fourth quarter. The profit figure was helped by a lower share price, and the same accounting line produced a loss in the third quarter of 2025, when the company's equity value rose. And for investors who bought at $23.00 in June, the after-hours price of $21.52 on November 12 still represented a loss.

The documents leave gaps. Liftoff reports no revenue by app category, no executive addressed the regional split, and the company did not quantify how much growth came from advertisers moving money away from web search, although three analysts raised the subject. The filings give no quarterly series for the existing-versus-new customer split, the earlier implied fourth-quarter figure is not stated, and Bondy gave no source for the 560,000 new apps figure and no detail on the 30% prediction study. In the Investing.com transcript, Bondy also says the fourth-quarter guide means growth "in the mid-30s% year-over-year," while the guided range implies 26% to 28%; the transcript does not show whether that was misspoken or mistranscribed.

Key facts

• Company: Liftoff Mobile, Inc., a Delaware corporation headquartered at 900 Middlefield Road, Redwood City, California 94063; common stock listed on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under LFTO; SEC Commission file number 001-43327.
• Period covered: Third quarter of 2026, the three months ended September 30, 2026.
• Earnings release: "Liftoff Mobile Announces Third Quarter 2026 Financial Results," GlobeNewswire, November 12, 2026.
• Form 8-K: Current report dated November 12, 2026 (Items 2.02 and 9.01), with the release as Exhibit 99.1; accession number 0001628280-26-073379; signed by Tarek Kutrieh.
• Form 10-Q: Quarterly report for the period ended September 30, 2026; accession number 0001628280-26-073522; signed November 12, 2026 by Jeremy Bondy and Tarek Kutrieh. Exhibits 10.1 and 10.2 are forms of RSU and option agreements under the Liftoff Mobile, Inc. 2026 Omnibus Incentive Plan, adopted as of August 15, 2026.
• Earnings call: November 12, 2026, 2:00 PM PT / 5:00 PM ET; transcript published by Investing.com.
• IPO: Registration statement on Form S-1, File No. 333-295144, effective June 3, 2026; prospectus filed June 4, 2026 under Rule 424(b)(4); 21.9 million shares at $23.00, closed June 5, 2026.
• Credit agreement: 2021 Credit Agreement dated September 30, 2021, amended September 8, 2025; Term Loan Facility matures September 8, 2032; $195.5 million Revolving Credit Facility matures September 8, 2030.
• Effective dates: Interest rate collars run from December 31, 2026 to December 31, 2028; separate reporting of Core Advertising revenue ends beginning with first-quarter 2027 results.
• Shares outstanding: 169,444,265 as of November 5, 2026.
• Source URL: https://investors.liftoff.ai (Liftoff investor relations site named in the release).
• Market data: November 12, 2026 closing and after-hours prices from Investing.com.

Timeline

• Fourth quarter of 2023 - Cortex becomes available in the market; Liftoff begins moving off legacy linear regression models.
• Early 2025 - Migration of legacy advertising platforms to Cortex substantially completed.
• June 30, 2025 - General Atlantic acquires an approximate 14.5% minority stake for $425.0 million in convertible preferred stock.
• September 8, 2025 - Liftoff refinances its debt with a $1,855.0 million term loan and a $195.5 million revolving facility.
• Third quarter of 2025 - Revenue of $179.5 million and a net loss of $5.7 million.
• November 2025 - Liftoff commissions the Altman Solon market study cited on the call.
• December 31, 2025 - Fiscal year closes with 2025 revenue of $685.7 million and adjusted EBITDA of $374.4 million.
• January 13, 2026 - Liftoff files a Form S-1 for a Nasdaq listing.
• February 2026 - Ahrefs finds AI Overviews reduce position-one click-through rates by 58%.
• March 31, 2026 - Liftoff lowers vesting hurdles on 2023 executive awards.
• June 3, 2026 - Registration statement declared effective; IPO priced at $23.00 per share; 1.3-for-1 stock split.
• June 4, 2026 - Trading begins on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under LFTO.
• June 5, 2026 - IPO closes: 21.9 million shares, net proceeds of approximately $472.4 million.
• June 29, 2026 - Liftoff prepays $409.2 million of term loan principal.
• Second quarter of 2026 - Revenue of $220 million and a net loss of $4.2 million.
• September 1 and 10, 2026 - Four officers adopt Rule 10b5-1 trading plans.
• September 30, 2026 - Quarter ends; shares close at $15.80.
• October 2026 - Liftoff enters $720.0 million of interest rate collars.
• October 2026 - AppsFlyer finds ad spend rose on 9 of the top 10 mobile media sources.
• November 4, 2026 - AppLovin reports third-quarter revenue of $2.18 billion, up 55%.
• November 5, 2026 - 169,444,265 Liftoff shares outstanding.
• November 12, 2026 - Liftoff reports third-quarter revenue of $237.5 million and net income of $86.7 million, files its 8-K and 10-Q, and holds its earnings call; shares rise 15.02% after hours.
• December 31, 2026 - Existing $850.0 million of interest rate swaps expire; collars take effect.
• First quarter of 2027 - Liftoff stops reporting Core Advertising revenue separately.
• August 27, 2027 - Trading plans of Bondy, Kutrieh and Tutundjian scheduled to expire.
• September 8, 2030 - Revolving credit facility matures.
• September 8, 2032 - Term loan matures.

Related PPC Land coverage

• Liftoff prices IPO at $23 and surges past $30 on Nasdaq debut - The June 2026 listing, the offering terms and Liftoff's full-year 2025 results.
• Blackstone's Liftoff bets $4 billion mobile ad empire on public markets - The January 2026 S-1 filing and the ownership history behind Liftoff and Vungle.
• AppLovin revenue gains 55% to $2.18bn as new ad models lift gaming - Third-quarter results from Liftoff's largest independent competitor and the model upgrade behind them.
• Ad spend rose on 9 of the top 10 mobile media sources, AppsFlyer finds - AppsFlyer's October 2026 ranking of mobile ad networks by spend.
• Google's AI summaries now swallow 58% of clicks that once went to websites - Ahrefs data on how AI Overviews changed click-through rates on Google results.

Summary

Who: Liftoff Mobile, Inc. (Nasdaq: LFTO), a Redwood City, California mobile advertising company majority-owned before its IPO by Blackstone, with chief executive Jeremy Bondy and president and chief financial officer Tarek Kutrieh presenting the results.

What: Third-quarter 2026 revenue of $237.5 million, up 32%, net income of $86.7 million against a year-earlier loss, adjusted EBITDA of $144.9 million at a 61% margin, US-billed revenue up 62%, and fourth-quarter guidance of $244 million to $249 million that implies growth of 26% to 28%. The 10-Q adds an unremediated material weakness, $1.43 billion of term loan principal and trading plans covering up to 1.36 million shares for four officers.

When: Results for the quarter ended September 30, 2026 were released, filed and discussed on a call on November 12, 2026.

Where: The results cover Liftoff's global business, with revenue billed in the United States, Asia Pacific, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and other parts of the Americas; the shares trade on the Nasdaq Global Select Market.

Why: Liftoff attributes the growth to improvements in its Cortex prediction model and to demand from advertisers across app categories, and its executives argue that AI-driven changes to web search are pushing businesses toward their own apps. The quarter matters to app advertisers and publishers because Liftoff is one of the largest independent ad networks outside the major platforms, and its results, debt and guidance show how that part of the market is performing as search traffic patterns change.