Liftoff Mobile, Inc. (LFTO) Stock Price & How to Invest
Last updated July 2026
Short answer
LFTO is Liftoff Mobile, the Redwood City ad-tech company that ran the Blackstone-backed June 2026 Nasdaq IPO and sells mobile app advertising through its Cortex AI bidding engine. Owning it is a bet that a roughly $740 million revenue challenger can keep taking mobile ad budget from AppLovin, Unity and Moloco, and it trades like that bet is already partly won.
LFTO stock price
As of 2026-08-07, Liftoff Mobile, Inc. (LFTO) last closed at $25.73, up 8.9% over the past month. Over its trading history so far it has traded between $21.96 and $28.45.
Prices are daily closing prices from Yahoo Finance and may be delayed. For the live quote, check your broker or Liftoff Mobile, Inc.'s investor relations page. Walnut is informational, not investment advice.
What does Liftoff Mobile, Inc. (LFTO) do?
Liftoff Mobile runs a single platform that sits on both sides of the mobile advertising trade: a demand-side platform where game and app developers buy installs and in-app purchases, and a supply-side platform where publishers sell their ad inventory. The connective tissue is Cortex, the neural-network prediction engine that decides which impressions to bid on and how much, based on the probability that a given user will install and then actually spend. The company was founded in 2011, merged with Vungle in 2021 under CEO Jeremy Bondy (Vungle's former chief executive), and now employs roughly ~652 people serving advertisers across the US, Asia Pacific, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Canada and Latin America. Mobile gaming publishers are the core customer base, with non-gaming app categories such as finance, e-commerce and streaming as the expansion frontier.
The investment picture is a growth story priced as one. Revenue for the twelve months ended March 2026 was about ~$741 million, up ~35% year over year, and Q1 2026 alone brought in ~$205.6 million on ~32% growth with ~$49.3 million of net income, a sharp reversal from the ~$23.1 million net loss the company posted for full-year 2025. Blackstone took the company public on Nasdaq on June 4, 2026 at ~$23 a share after an earlier postponement, raising roughly ~$437 million; the stock popped past ~$30 on debut and has since settled near ~$25.73 for a market capitalization around ~$4.36 billion. That works out to roughly ~5.9 times trailing sales and a trailing P/E near ~178, because GAAP earnings are only just turning positive. Owning LFTO means accepting that multiple in exchange for growth that currently runs faster than the mobile ad market, against a competitor set that includes a much larger AppLovin, plus Google, Meta and Amazon.
What's driving Liftoff Mobile, Inc. (LFTO)?
1. Cortex and the both-sides data loop
Because Liftoff operates the DSP and the SSP together, Cortex sees the bid request and the post-install outcome in the same system, which is the feedback loop that makes install predictions sharper over time. That structural advantage is the same one AppLovin used to compound, and it is why Liftoff frames itself as an AI company rather than an ad network. Each incremental advertiser adds training signal that in principle lifts performance for everyone else on the platform.
2. Non-gaming app categories
Mobile gaming remains the revenue base, but gaming install volume grows slowly and the larger pool of budget sits in finance, retail, delivery, dating and streaming apps that are still learning to buy performance media at scale. Liftoff has been pushing into these categories, where advertisers care about a funded account or a first order rather than a level completion. Success there would widen the addressable market well beyond the company's historical core.
3. Post-IPO operating leverage
The swing from a ~$23.1 million full-year 2025 net loss to ~$49.3 million of net income in Q1 2026 alone shows what happens when revenue grows ~32% against a cost base of roughly ~652 employees that does not scale with impressions. Ad-tech infrastructure is largely fixed once built, so the incremental take rate falls closer to the bottom line. Whether that continues is the single number to watch when the company reports Q2 2026 on August 12, 2026.
4. Privacy-era targeting as a moat
Apple's ATT and the deprecation of device identifiers made naive retargeting far less effective, which raised the value of probabilistic models that infer intent from contextual and behavioral signal instead. Platforms with enough throughput to train those models absorbed share from smaller networks that could not. Liftoff's scale, roughly ~$741 million in trailing revenue, is on the right side of that consolidation.
What are the risks to Liftoff Mobile, Inc. (LFTO)?
The valuation is the first-order risk: at roughly ~5.9 times trailing sales and a trailing P/E near ~178, a single quarter of decelerating growth can compress the multiple faster than earnings can grow into it. Concentration is the second, since mobile gaming advertisers dominate the revenue base and game-studio ad budgets are among the first things cut in a downturn. AppLovin is materially larger, with roughly ~$1.84 billion in Q1 2026 revenue growing ~59%, meaning Liftoff is growing slower than its closest comparable, while Google, Meta and Amazon can price aggressively because mobile app ads are a side business for them. A ~180-day IPO lockup from the June 4, 2026 listing points to a supply event around early December 2026, and Blackstone remains a large holder whose eventual exit path matters to the float. Platform dependency is the structural risk under all of it: Apple and Google set the identifier, attribution and store rules that determine how well Cortex can measure anything, and a further tightening would hit measurement quality without any warning.
What is the Liftoff Mobile, Inc. (LFTO) forecast?
13 analysts publish price targets on LFTO, averaging $35.46 against a $25.73 price as of August 2026, or +37.8%. The published targets run from $30.00 to $42.00, a moderate spread, and the ratings split 13 buy, 2 hold, 0 sell. Over the last six months there have been 0 raises and 0 cuts among the published actions. A price target is what an analyst published on a date, not a prediction, and sell-side ratings skew positive across the whole market.
Read the full LFTO forecast and price target for the target table, the recent rating actions by firm, and how the consensus has shifted.
Is LFTO a buy or a sell?
We give no verdict on Liftoff Mobile, Inc.. Both cases are real, which is why the question is contested at all, so here is the strongest version of each.
The case for buying. Cortex and the both-sides data loop. Because Liftoff operates the DSP and the SSP together, Cortex sees the bid request and the post-install outcome in the same system, which is the feedback loop that makes install predictions sharper over time. The most optimistic published target, $42.00, assumes this works close to its best case.
The case against. The valuation is the first-order risk: at roughly ~5.9 times trailing sales and a trailing P/E near ~178, a single quarter of decelerating growth can compress the multiple faster than earnings can grow into it. The most pessimistic target, $30.00, is roughly what LFTO is worth if this bites instead.
Read the full bull and bear case on LFTO, including what would have to change to break either one. Walnut is not an investment adviser.
How is Liftoff Mobile, Inc. (LFTO) valued? (approximate, August 2026)
A simple financial snapshot. These are approximations and refresh quarterly; for current figures see Liftoff Mobile, Inc.'s investor relations page or your broker.
- Revenue (TTM, through March 2026): ~$741 million, up ~35% year over year
- Q1 2026 revenue: ~$205.6 million, up ~32%
- Net income (TTM): ~$14.3 million, after a ~$23.1 million FY2025 loss
- Q1 2026 net income: ~$49.3 million (~$0.44 per share)
- Market capitalization: ~$4.36 billion at about ~$25.73 per share
- Trailing valuation: ~5.9x sales, ~178x trailing earnings
The trailing P/E near ~178 is an artifact of a company that only crossed into GAAP profitability inside the last few quarters, so the price-to-sales ratio around ~5.9 is the more readable figure. Q1 2026 profit of ~$49.3 million against a full-year 2025 loss of ~$23.1 million is the whole thesis in two numbers, which also means the Q2 2026 report scheduled for August 12, 2026 carries unusual weight. As a company that listed in June 2026, LFTO has no multi-year public track record to check any of this against.
Who competes with Liftoff Mobile, Inc. (LFTO)?
Independent mobile ad platforms
AppLovin is the direct comparable and the larger one, at roughly ~$1.84 billion of Q1 2026 revenue growing ~59%, with the same DSP-plus-publisher-tools structure. Unity competes through Unity Ads and the ironSource mediation stack, which is embedded in the game engine itself. Moloco is the privately held machine-learning bidder that wins on the same performance pitch Liftoff makes.
The walled gardens
Google (Google Ads and AdMob), Meta and Amazon sell app-install inventory at enormous scale with first-party user data that no independent platform can match. They set the floor on pricing and absorb budget first when advertisers consolidate. They are also the platform owners whose identifier and attribution rules govern how well independent bidders can measure results.
Attribution and monetization tooling
AppsFlyer and Adjust own the measurement layer that advertisers use to grade Liftoff's performance, which makes them both partners and gatekeepers on how spend is credited. Digital Turbine sits on the on-device distribution side with carrier and OEM app placement. Their independence matters to Liftoff, because a measurement vendor tilting toward a rival platform changes what advertisers believe about results.
What stocks are similar to Liftoff Mobile, Inc. (LFTO)?
Other names that sit close to LFTO: same theme, named as a direct competitor, or held beside it in the same funds. Each entry says which. Worth a look if you are thinking about diversification within a thesis rather than concentration on one ticker.
How to invest in Liftoff Mobile, Inc. (LFTO)
There are three common ways to get LFTO exposure. Buy shares (or fractional shares) directly at any major broker. Hold an ETF that includes it, which spreads the position across many companies. Or build it into a focused thematic portfolio, so LFTO sits alongside other stocks that express the same thesis.
Walnut takes the portfolio route. Describe a thesis where LFTO fits (for example “AI infrastructure” or “dividend-growth large-caps”) and the AI proposes 5 to 6 constituents with target weights. You review the plan and fund it through your own broker when you're ready.
New to this? Start with how to invest in stocks, see how to analyze a stock with AI, or compare the best AI stock analyzers.
The bottom line on Liftoff Mobile, Inc. (LFTO)
LFTO is a fast-growing, recently public mobile ad platform whose revenue trajectory is real and whose valuation leaves little room for a slower quarter.
More on Liftoff Mobile, Inc. (LFTO)
Whether LFTO is worth buying today depends more on your time horizon and what you already hold than on any single call. We walk through valuation, what would have to go right, and the risks in is LFTO a buy or a sell?, and where the stock could go from here in the LFTO stock forecast.
For income investors, whether LFTO pays a dividend and how the payout looks is covered in does LFTO pay a dividend? And to weigh LFTO against a peer, read the full side-by-side comparisons: LFTO vs APP and LFTO vs U.
Wondering how LFTO fits the portfolio you already own? Walnut is an AI investing app that connects your brokerage read-only and answers questions like that about your actual holdings: overlap, concentration, and how each position tracks the S&P 500. Compare the best AI portfolio analyzers or see the best AI investing apps in 2026.
Investing in Liftoff Mobile, Inc. with AI
Connect the broker you already use and ask Walnut's AI how LFTO fits what you actually hold: whether you own it already through a fund, what it would do to your concentration, and how it has tracked the S&P 500. Read-only by default, and you approve anything before it reaches your broker.
FAQ
What company is LFTO?
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LFTO is the Nasdaq ticker for Liftoff Mobile, Inc., a mobile advertising and app-monetization platform headquartered in Redwood City, California. Founded in 2011 and merged with Vungle in 2021, it runs a combined demand-side and supply-side platform powered by its Cortex AI bidding engine and employs roughly ~652 people.
What exchange does LFTO trade on?
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Liftoff Mobile trades on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the symbol LFTO. It listed on June 4, 2026 at an IPO price of about ~$23 per share, raising roughly ~$437 million in a Blackstone-backed offering, and opened well above the deal price before settling nearer ~$25.73.
How much revenue does Liftoff Mobile generate?
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Revenue for the twelve months ended March 2026 was about ~$741 million, up roughly ~35% from the prior year. Q1 2026 contributed ~$205.6 million of that, a ~32% year-over-year increase, with the bulk of spend coming from mobile game advertisers buying installs and in-app purchase events.
Is Liftoff Mobile profitable?
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It recently became so on a GAAP basis. Full-year 2025 ended in a net loss of about ~$23.1 million, while Q1 2026 produced ~$49.3 million of net income, or roughly ~$0.44 per share. Trailing twelve-month net income of about ~$14.3 million reflects that mix of loss-making and profitable quarters.
What does Cortex actually do?
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Cortex is Liftoff's prediction engine. For each available ad impression it estimates the probability that a specific user will install an app and then spend money inside it, and sets the bid accordingly. Because Liftoff also operates the supply side, the engine observes the post-install outcome and feeds it back into future bidding decisions.
How does LFTO compare with AppLovin?
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AppLovin is the same business model at much greater scale, with roughly ~$1.84 billion in Q1 2026 revenue growing about ~59%, faster than Liftoff's ~32%. Liftoff is the smaller challenger at around ~$741 million trailing revenue, so the comparison sets the ceiling on what the model can produce and also the standard LFTO is measured against.
What are the main risks in owning LFTO?
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A trailing multiple near ~5.9 times sales leaves little tolerance for slower growth, mobile gaming advertisers dominate the revenue base, and Apple and Google control the identifier and attribution rules that determine how well Cortex can measure performance. A ~180-day IPO lockup from the June 2026 listing also implies a share-supply event around early December 2026.
How would LFTO fit into a themed group of holdings?
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It sits naturally with AI-driven advertising and mobile app economy themes alongside AppLovin, Unity, Trade Desk and Digital Turbine, where the shared driver is machine-learning bidding replacing manual media buying. In Walnut you can set a target weight for LFTO inside such a group, place the orders through your connected broker, and then track how much of the group's movement traces back to this one position.
Walnut is informational, not investment advice. Financial figures on this page are approximations; always verify current numbers with Liftoff Mobile, Inc.'s investor relations page or your broker before making investment decisions.