SoftBank has completed a $200-million investment, in InMobi, the world's largest independent mobile ad network.
The funding will take place in two tranches with $100 million in September followed by an equivalent tranche in April of next year. Softbank joins existing investors Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Sherpalo Ventures in helping InMobi become a global leader in the mobile advertising industry.
The $200 million investment, one of the largest to date in the mobile internet space , will help the company create value across the mobile ecosystem globally through world-class advertising, mobile payments using SmartPay, and HTML5 rich media production and distribution using the recently acquired Sprout platform.
“The size of the investment and quality of investor validate the enormous potential in mobile today and strengthen our role in helping the industry evolve. We have already established ourselves as a leader in mobile advertising on every continent. This is just the beginning. With a global leader like Softbank behind us, we are now well positioned to fully capitalize on the opportunity before us through substantially increased product innovation, deeper market penetration, and acquisitions across the mobile ad value chain,” said Naveen Tewari, founder and CEO of InMobi.
This partnership will provide Softbank and InMobi with opportunities to further explore global scale collaboration in the fast growing mobile ad market. It is also expected to generate further synergies between InMobi and Softbank, given the significant number of prominent Asian Internet companies in Softbank’s investment portfolio.