"Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half."

- John Wanamaker, a US merchant, over a century ago

‍Regarded as one of the pioneers of modern advertising, Wanamaker was notable for his then-innovative approach to retail promotion.

‍His observation sparked a global industry focused on solving this exact problem. An industry now worth $6 billion and expected to triple in size over the next decade.

‍This explosive growth is fueled by a convergence of technological innovation, economic shifts, regulatory pressures, and evolving user behavior. 

‍Yet, measuring advertising effectiveness—especially in the mobile app space—has never been more challenging.

The Attribution Gap

Privacy-first implementations have disrupted long-standing measurement models. In particular, Apple’s App Tracking Transparency (ATT) and SKAdNetwork (SKAN) have rendered traditional mobile measurement tools increasingly unreliable.

Lucas Moscon, an Argentinian app builder, recognized that incumbent analytics providers were struggling to adapt due to their legacy architectures. 

In response, he began building an AI-powered internal attribution system designed explicitly for mobile advertisers.

Early tests showed promising results. Lucas soon joined Entrepreneur First, where he met his technical co-founder, Tom Darmon, a machine learning engineer based in Paris.

Together, they raised a seed round from industry insiders who immediately grasped the significance of their work.

In a world where traditional ad tracking is breaking down, Appstack provides a privacy-first solution that enables mobile marketers to understand what’s working without compromising user privacy.

Attribution in a Privacy-First World

Mobile advertising has long promised a simple equation: spend money, acquire users, analyze what works, and double down. But this equation has become increasingly difficult to solve.

With the advent of ATT and SKAN, legacy mobile measurement providers (MMPs)—built around persistent device identifiers—have struggled to maintain effectiveness in today’s privacy-centric landscape.

Appstack reimagines attribution from the ground up. The platform connects campaign spend to in-app outcomes using anonymized, probabilistic data—completely sidestepping the need for SDKs, fingerprinting, or personal identifiers.

More than technically advanced, Appstack is also refreshingly easy to adopt. 

It integrates seamlessly with tools like Firebase and Segment, providing a transparent timeline of which campaigns drove which results, complete with confidence scores and decision logic.

Why We Invested

Our decision to back Appstack is rooted in three key convictions:

• The old model is collapsing. Regulatory and platform changes are rendering deterministic tracking obsolete. Appstack isn’t adapting to this reality—it’s built for it.
• Modern mobile teams are underserved. The rise of solo developers and no-code tools has created lean teams launching apps without the resources to manage complex MMPs. Appstack’s SDK-free, plug-and-play approach meets these developers where they are.
• The founders are exceptional. CEO Lucas Moscon brings deep domain expertise from building attribution tools at a top-50 iOS app. CTO Tom Darmon adds ML and real-time data processing skills. Together, they’ve moved with uncommon speed, securing early paying customers and strategic agency partnerships.

Early Traction & Road Ahead

Launched in 2024, Appstack is already powering campaigns for nine agencies across Europe and Latin America. Over 250 apps have been pre-registered, and the team is experiencing strong inbound demand.

The iOS product is live, with Android support and a redesigned marketer-facing frontend launching soon. Upcoming features include cohort reporting, creative-level insights, and A/B test overlays.

In the longer term, Appstack aims to evolve into a comprehensive performance measurement platform, consolidating fragmented analytics tools into a unified, privacy-compliant stack.

Building the Attribution Layer for a Privacy-First Internet

The next generation of mobile infrastructure is being built now. Appstack is uniquely positioned at the crossroads of platform shifts, regulatory change, and developer needs.

Appstack has the potential to become the default attribution layer for the privacy-first internet. 

We’re proud to support Lucas, Tom, and the Appstack team on this journey.

For more information, visit www.app-stack.tech.