Bengaluru-based advertising technology company, InMobi, announced that it has acquired the Los- Angeles based startup, AerServ, in a whopping $90 million cash and stock deal. The deal is the SoftBank-backed company’s largest acquisition so far. The acquisition is expected to increase InMobi’s monetisation by 25-30 per cent from both, its existing clientele as well as help the company acquire new clients. InMobi, however, is yet to disclose the value of the stock component in the deal.
InMobi was founded in 2007 and has so far raised $ 221 million in funding, with SoftBank being the most prominent investor with a $205 million contribution. The company had raised a debt of $100 million in September 2015 from Tennenbaum. With the current acquisition, around 35 per cent of the total revenue will come from InMobi’s video and programmatic business segment. InMobi’s main competitors include Google’s AdMob, Flurry, and StartApp.
“The acquisition fits in perfectly with our global strategy to bring next – generation platforms for premium publishers. Our combined platforms will bring next-generation mediation capabilities to premium publishers and establish the first programmatic video exchange in India and China,” said Naveen Tewari, founder and CEO of InMobi, when speaking about the deal.
AerServ is an American mobile video ad startup that was founded in 2012. According to a statement released by the InMobi, the acquisition will increase monetisation for publishers worldwide and will lead to an expansion of InMobi’s product suite by the development of InMobi exchange, an advertising technology company.
“Our decision to embark on this new adventure was made easy by the great partner we have in InMobi, their expertise in the industry and global scale. This will allow us to scale our platforms together across the globe and build a strong business in previously untapped markets such as China and broader APAC,” Josh Speyer, CEO at AerServ, said.
As per reports, it is predicted that approximately two thirds of the global digital display advertising will be traded programmatically by 2019 and the value of advertising being sold programmatically will rise from the current figure of $ 57.5 billion to $ 84.9 billion.
“The acquisition gives us the capability to use programmatic video, when we have used normal video till now. It gives publishers a lot more options in terms of flexibility and scalability,” said Naveen Tewari. Additionally, according to him, the platform has the capability to boost the engineering and product outcomes for InMobi and will lead to a rise in clients across countries, especially in the markets in China and US.
(Picture courtesy: mobyaffiliates.com )