mKhoj Rings in $7.1 Million in Series A funding from KPCB and Sherpalo
Kiruba Shankar
22 comments »
Kleiner Perkins, Caufield & Byers and Sherpalo Ventures have ploughed $7.1 Million into mKhoj, a mobile advertising company based in Mumbai, India. It’s quite a “healthy” investment considering that its competitor mGinger received only $2 Million in funding last year.
The mKhoj platform lets companies advertise on mobile phones by reaching out to targeted consumers. It also lets publishers monetize their traffic via contextual ads.
mKhoj began in November 2006 as a local search service that helped mobile users search for attractive shopping deals in their vicinity. (khoj in Hindi means “search”). When this did not take off as expected, the founders quickly transitioned the company into a “Mobile Advertising Marketplace”.
The company was founded by Naveen Tewari, a Harvard grad and ex-McKinsey consultant. This is his first startup as an entrepreneur; his earlier role was with Charles River Ventures, a top tier VC firm focusing on early stage investments in software and communications.
The Mumbai Angels, who were the first to invest in mKhoj, may have a second hit on their hands after the successful exit of MadHouse, a DVD rental firm, last year. Praveen Chakravarty (COO, BNP Securities India ), Sasha Mirchandani (Partner, Blue Run Ventures) and Manoj Maheshwari (Chairman, Aurovision), all members of Mumbai Angels, invested $500,000. The Mumbai Angels are considered to be good ‘Mentor Capitalists’ with good connections and smart strategy advice.
0 technology = Lame.
FTA: “mKhoj began in November 2006 as a local search service that helped mobile users search for attractive shopping deals in their vicinity. (khoj in Hindi means “search”). When this did not take off as expected, the founders quickly transitioned the company into a “Mobile Advertising Marketplace”.”
This is a classic deadpool move. Funding just postpones the obvious.
I love it how they had one idea but when that did not work they tried another. What happened to coming out with one idea and dedicated yourself to it.
What are their barriers to entry? What’s it to prevent some other ad network from jumping into mobile? None.
PS: Absolutely horrible name.
This won’t work.
Their platform lets companies advertise on mobile phones by reaching out to targeted consumers.
The problem is that no-body wants mobile ads that can reach you wherever you are, especially if the ads are pushed to the mobile.
And nobody will sign up to receive these ads, so pushing the ads (read spamming) is the only way to go.
It was tried with SMS in the 90s in Europe, and the result was SMS ad spam, a lot of it, which had to be stopped at the operator level, and a lot of it was coming out of Asia (seen that first hand).
What’s special about these guys? Their website is not great (It gives me errors and is written in ASP), they are not the cheapest, they give no data about traffic etc.
You need to try harder.
Leaders in this space: Admob & Buzz City
Gustaf
(Offtopic) - What font is it in their logo ?
So, techcrunch hired Kiruba Shankar !!!
Congrats Kiruba.
Happy to see you writing TC post.
Mkhoj is providing extra functionalities other than any wap advertising sites . That is make it different. Mkhoj really working hard.
wwoowWWWW … Kiruba .. congrats … u r in TC now .. cool
I would say there is no pride in sticking to one idea that is not working and be dead with it. Successful are those who change accroding to the time and business needs and mKhoj has proven that in a great way. My suggestion to them is to keep working hard and utilize the funding to improve themselves.
I would disagree with most of the first comments (”won’t work”, “should stick with one idea”, “deadpool move”). On occasion, it might be extremely worthwhile to move your strategy where the money flows actually are. See VC Paul Fisher’s series on Advertising 2.0.
Other than that, would Michael be a gentleman, and introduce the TC readers to Kiruba Shankar, new writer here ? (of course, I checked: Kiruba is a prominent blogger/entrepreneur in India, which is why the indian blogosphere seems excited here ;-), but no mention of TechCrunch on his pages, nor the other way around…
I would disagree with most of the first comments (”won’t work”, “stick to your idea”, “deadpool move”). On occasion, it might be good to move your strategy where the money flows actually are. See VC Paul Fisher’s series on Advertising 2.0.
Other than that, would Michael please be a gentleman, and introduce TC readers to Kiruba Shankar, new writer here ?
Of course, I checked, and Kiruba is apparently a prominent entrepreneur/blogger in India (which explains some indian excitement here). Still, no mention of TC on his page, nor vice-versa.
I think these guys are well positioned - they are in regions that need mobile adv, not like here in US where there are other successful digital avenues. They would do well if they can scale up the business in that region (read: entry barrier). I tested them out and they worked well & technology is only a barrier when it has amazing R&D barriers, else it all boils down to scale. Admob needed a competitor in India/Asia, so it will be an interesting battle to watch out for.
Mkhoj is very well positioned for the Asia market where the mobile penetration is much stronger than US.It has a top quality collection of people, all having relevant experience.I am sure it will do wonders in the upcoming mobile market. Good luck guys!!!
What a lame post - mKhoj competing with mGinger? Hows that?
Mobile ad network competing with permission marketeer? In that case you should also mention that mKhoj is competing with every damn mobile co. which is trying to bring in advertisers and distribute ads within it’s OWN network!
Is TC going the regular media way? i.e. posts without any depth/thought process?
Gladly, yes!
Kiruba, you forgot to mention the other competitor to MKhoj - 160by2.com. Though the business models of MKhoj, Mginger and 160by2 are all marginally different, I would tend to think 160by2 is closer to what Mkhoj is..
Google’s mobile adsense will kill them. Plus dozens of other global open market ad auction companies - will drive in a more efficient pricing model - essentially shutting these guys and smaller players out.