Nowadays, whenever one is surfing through an application on his/her mobile or laptop they must have come across some pop-up advertisements of different brands. These advertisements come in different ways on our devices. Sometimes in video format, a drop-down banner, sliding-in from any side, or the most common pop-up style. This is one of the most effective ways for brands to advertise themselves. It has become a common practice these days. But, till the late 2000s, there was a big space in this domain especially in the Indian markets. No such big companies were offering mobile advertising technology.
This exact gap in the market was identified by Abhay Singhal – an IIT Kanpur graduate, Naveen Tiwari – a Harvard Business School graduate, Mohit Saxena, Piyush Shah, and Amit Gupta – (later founded Yulu). These 5 guys came along and founded India’s first global mobile advertising technology company, InMobi in 2007. The startup has its headquarters in Bengaluru. Operating in the ad tech space the firm builds transformative technologies to positively impact people, businesses, and societies around the world.
First Traction
The B2B-modeled company raised its first funding on 30 August 2007. It was raised in a seed round, and the amount of the fund was $500K. The investment was led by Mumbai Angels. In 2008, it was enhanced from SMS-based services to mobile advertising.
Recent In News
InMobi is keen on introducing automation to streamline its processes, thus it is overhauling its operations by adopting an Artificial Intelligence (AI) first approach which may lead to job loss of 5% of its overall working personnel.
Year-over-Year Analysis
In 2020, the firm’s valuation was $1.5Bn. It had already gain the unicorn status back in 2011. The total revenue in FY20 was $149.9M. The company remained in the profitability bracket this year with a net profit of $82.6M. The startup has secured $320.6M by the end of this financial year.
For the next fiscal year, the growth rate observed was 30.6% as the gross revenue surged to $195.8M in FY21 from $149.9M in 2020. The firm didn’t raise any funds this year. There was a decline reported in the profits earned by the company as the net profit reduced to $64.6M in FY20-21.
As of FY22, the company moved out of the profitability bracket for the first time in last few years. The overall revenue in this year rose to $265.6M, the growth rate observed was 35.6%. Continuing the trend, no funding was secured by the Bengaluru-based firm. A net loss of $32.5M was reported.
The next financial year, the revenue generated by the adtech startup grew by mere 1.05%. The total revenue recorded in FY23 was $268.4M. The company regained its positon as a profitable firm in 2023 as it returned in the profitability bracket. The net profit in this year was $42M.
The Business-to-Business (B2B) company is yet to file its financial report with the Registrar of Companied (RoC) for the financial year 2024.
Expansion
InMobi forges global partnership with Ad Net zero to further its commitment to sustainable advertising practices. Glance, a consumer internet company which is owned by InMobi is eyeing expansion in the US and the Latin markets from the last year. Glance offers its users a constant stream of content on their mobile lock screens.
Competitors
Alternatives of the mobile advertising technology company InMobi include Liftoff, StreamO, Adsmovil, Open Rhapsody, and Adparagon. The Bengalurur-headquartered company currently has a 22% market share.
Acquisition
The B2B-modeled startup has made quite a few acquisitions starting from 2011. Its first acquisition was of Chipin – an online media company focused on providing cryptocurrency related news. It then acquired overlay media in 2013. Five years down the line it announced the acquisition of aerserv for $90 million in cash and stock to create the industry’s first mediation platform with a unified programmatic auction for mobile in-app publishers. Its latest acquisition was of Quantcast – a consent management platform (CMP) designed to help publishers seamlessly align with the rapidly changing global privacy regulations. The ad tech firm has made a total of 11 acquisitions to date
