AdMob gets funding boost

The company has experienced strong growth over the past year, more than tripling the number of ads served on a monthly basis to 4.5 billion in September 2008. 

Fueled by this funding, AdMob will make a number of strategic investments.

It will expand globally by hiring local staff in key markets and adding new language interfaces, with an emphasis in Western Europe, India, South Africa and Japan.

The company will also use the funds to invest in its mobile technology platform, including its targeting, optimization and ad serving algorithm.

It will also increase its offerings for both publishers and advertisers, and grow its US sales and business development teams. 

“Today AdMob reaches more consumers on their mobile phones through our publisher network than any of the major Internet portals or search services, and this is just the beginning,” said Omar Hamoui, Founder and CEO, AdMob. “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.”

AdMob also announced its publisher network now includes more than 6,000 partners worldwide giving it an unmatched scale. New publishers in 2008 include MySpace and MovieTickets.com.

“AdMob has surpassed the largest names in digital advertising to become the world’s biggest mobile ad network in just two short years,” said Jim Goetz, Partner, Sequoia Capital. “AdMob has tapped into the exploding market of publishers creating great mobile content for consumers and the advertisers eager to interact with those engaged users. AdMob is well capitalized and has achieved cash flow positive results, giving them a unique opportunity in this difficult economic climate to aggressively capture market share. They have some of the same qualities that we saw in Google, Yahoo!, YouTube and Apple, including their exceptional team and powerful technology platform.”

AdMob also continues to see a steep increase in the number of brand and performance advertisers running campaigns on its network, with especially strong demand for iPhone inventory. In September 2008, AdMob ran more than 25 campaigns for brand advertisers including CoverGirl, Toshiba, and Comedy Central.

www.admob.com.