ADMOB SECURES US$ 15.7 MILLION IN SERIES C FUNDING, LOOKING TO EXPAND GROWTH

Mobile advertising marketplace AdMob has raised a Series C investment round worth US$ 15.7 million, led by Sequoia Capital's Growth Fund along with participation from existing investor Accel Partners. AdMob said that over the past year it has more than tripled the number of ads served on a monthly basis to 4.5 billion in September 2008. AdMob’s publisher network now includes more than 6,000 partners worldwide, including MySpace and MovieTickets.com that came on board this year. The company has plans of making significant strategic investments by boosting growth of worldwide operations by hiring local staff in key markets and adding new language interfaces, with an emphasis in Western Europe, India, South Africa, and Japan. It will also look to deepen its mobile technology platform, including its targeting, optimization, and ad serving algorithm. Additionally, AdMob plans to expand the breadth of offerings for both publishers and advertisers. Omar Hamoui, founder and CEO of AdMob, said, "We chose to raise this new round of funding to continue to grow both the mobile advertising market and AdMob's clear advantage in it by investing in the technology, operations, and team that have set the bar for the mobile industry." The company has so far raised over US$ 30.7 million in various funding rounds. -Smarajit Dasgupta