Facebook has acquired mobile ad start-up Rel8tion to improve hyper-local ad targeting to its 200 million-plus mobile subscribers.

According to All Things Digital, which broke the news, Rel8tion is a nine-month-old Seattle-based start-up that connects people to ads based on their location and demographic. The company was co-founded by Peter Wilson, a Google engineering veteran, and Scott Hannan, previously a consultant for Microsoft.

Hyper-local ads, popularized by Groupon's local deals, could be Facebook's plan for generating income through its Facebook Deals geo-location service. According to Facebook, those who use Facebook on their mobile devices are twice as active as non-mobile Facebook users.

In a statement Facebook said, "We're excited to confirm that we recently completed a talent acquisition of Rel8tion, a stealth-mode startup in Seattle. The engineering team will join our growing Seattle office, and we're looking forward to having them on board."

Last year, Google and Apple acquired their own mobile ad networks, AdMob and Quattro Wireless respectively. Earlier this month, AdMob reported 2 billion ad requests a day