Unity Shuts Down ironSource Ad Network, Sells Supersonic Three-and-a-Half Years After $4.4 Billion Merger

Recently, game engine giant Unity officially announced in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that it will shut down the ironSource ad network and initiate the sales process of its mobile game publishing brand Supersonic. These moves mean that the high-profile $4.4 billion industry merger three and a half years ago has quietly been dismantled, and almost no traces of ironSource’s business remain within Unity.

Looking back to 2022, Unity completed its merger with Israeli ad-tech firm ironSource. At that time, ironSource brought three core business segments — Sonic, Aura, and Supersonic — and its advertising business was highly anticipated, being regarded as set to play a leading role in the merged company. However, this expectation was not realized; on the contrary, Unity gradually shifted its focus to the construction of its own advertising infrastructure in the subsequent years.

It is reported that Unity did not expand based on ironSource’s ad network, but instead continuously invested resources to upgrade its legacy platform, eventually transforming it into an artificial intelligence-based system renamed “Unity Vector”. The decision to shut down the ironSource ad network merely formalizes a strategic shift that has long been underway. According to the announcement, the ironSource ad network will officially cease operations on April 30, 2026, and Unity stated that the business will make a “minimal contribution” to the company after the first quarter of 2026.

Leadership changes have further accelerated this transformation process. In early 2024, the remaining founders of ironSource, including former CEO Tomer Bar-Zeev, resigned from Unity one after another; in early 2025, Nadav Ashkenazy, a former ironSource executive who had been appointed to lead Unity’s advertising operations in Israel, also left the company. Earlier reports indicated that there were issues of bullying and mismanagement within Unity’s ad-tech division, leading to a toxic work environment, dissatisfied employees, and dozens of resignations, which also laid hidden dangers for the integration after the merger of the two parties.

Concurrent with the shutdown of the ad network is the plan to sell Supersonic. Unity has hired a financial advisor to assist with this asset divestiture. As a mobile game publishing brand within Unity, Supersonic has accumulated approximately 6.6 billion downloads since its launch in February 2020; as of October 2024, the more than 130 games it has published have over 190 million monthly active users, including popular mobile games such as Bridge Race, Going Balls, and Build A Queen.

Notably, this business restructuring is taking place against a backdrop of relatively strong financial performance by Unity. Unity released preliminary results for the first quarter of 2026 that exceeded market expectations, with projected revenue reaching $505 million to $508 million, higher than the previous guidance of $480 million to $490 million; adjusted EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization) is expected to reach $130 million to $135 million, significantly exceeding the earlier forecast of $105 million to $110 million, representing a year-on-year growth of 58%.

The performance growth is mainly driven by the strong performance of Unity’s ad-tech product Unity Vector and the better-than-expected performance of its engine business (Create). According to Unity, Unity Vector achieved a 15% sequential growth in the first quarter, becoming a key driver of the company’s overall performance improvement; the advertising and user acquisition business (Grow) is expected to generate $352 million in revenue in the first quarter, while the engine business (Create) is expected to generate $155 million in revenue.

Matt Bromberg, CEO and President of Unity, said: “Unity Vector continues to deliver robust growth each quarter, driving results meaningfully above our guidance. Today’s actions will accelerate Vector’s impact on our business, enhancing both revenue growth and profitability.” The core purpose of this business adjustment is to streamline operations, concentrate resources on higher-growth infrastructure products with stronger performance, and gradually divest traditional monetization assets.

In contrast to ironSource’s “exit” from Unity, its founding team has embarked on a new entrepreneurial journey. Earlier this month, several former ironSource executives, including Tomer Bar-Zeev (Chairman), Omer Kaplan (CEO), and Assaf Ben Ami (CFO & COO), raised $58 million in seed funding for ZyG, their newly founded AI e-commerce startup aimed at helping entrepreneurs build and scale e-commerce brands.

It is reported that starting from the first quarter of 2026, Unity will separately disclose “Strategic Growth Revenue” data, which will exclude the contributions from the ironSource ad network and Supersonic business, providing a clearer reflection of the development trend of the company’s core business. The quiet dismantling of this once high-profile industry merger also marks an important step for Unity in focusing on core businesses and pursuing high-quality growth.