InMobi, a San Mateo, CA-based independent mobile ad network, completed a $200m investment with SOFTBANK Corp.
The funding will be delivered in two tranches: $100m in September 2011 followed by an equivalent tranche in April 2012.
Softbank joins existing investors Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Sherpalo Ventures (read here).
The company intends to use the proceeds from the investment to increase product innovation, deeper market penetration, and acquisitions across the mobile ad value chain.
Led by Founder & CEO Naveen Tewari, InMobi provides advertisers, publishers and developers with advertising, mobile payments (using SmartPay™), and HTML5 rich media production and distribution (using the recently acquired Sprout™ platform). According to a written statement, the network currently reaches 340 million consumers, in over 165 countries, through more than 47 billion mobile ad impressions monthly.
This partnership is designed to provide both Softbank and InMobi with opportunities to further explore global scale collaboration in the mobile ad market and is expected to generate further synergies between th two companies, given the Asian Internet companies in Softbank’s investment portfolio.
The company also has offices in London, San Francisco, Bangalore, Tokyo, Nairobi and Singapore.
FinSMEs
15/09/2011