Global mobile advertising network operator mKhoj shall henceforth be known under the name InMobi, which is infinitely easier to pronounce in the Western world. The company felt the rebranding was necessary given that it will be shifting more of its focus to Western Europe – where its services are currently already live in the UK, France, Italy, Germany and Spain – after gaining sufficient scale on the Asian and African mobile markets.
The startup is certainly performing pretty well in a very crowded market.
Based on our understanding of their eCPMs and monthly ad impressions (which range up to 2 billion per month and growing), it looks like they are currently grossing over $1m in mobile ad revenues per month.
That’s not too shabby, and if you consider that the eCPM rates they informed us about are based on averages from their operations on the Asian and African mobile markets, it’s conceivable that they’re looking at multiplying that revenue soon.
That is, if they manage to get traction in Europe, where eCPMs are generally much higher. If they book some early success, the company says it will be on track to become cash-flow positive later this year.
The company’s mobile advertising service – which is targeted more to the mobile web than applications – is currently available in over 23 countries and cites advertisers like Reebok, Yamaha, Cricket Nirvana and MakeMyTrip.
mKhoj InMobi has offices in Palo Alto, India and Singapore. The company raised a total of $7.6 million to date, starting out with a $500k seed round from a group of angel investors and followed up by a multi-million financing round led by Kleiner Perkins, Caufield & Byers and Sherpalo Ventures (the VC firm started by Ram Shriram, early backer and founding board member of Google).
definitely easier to pronounce now, does anyone knows some of their competitors in europe?
The name change was long overdue not just because it now needs a name that is palatable among the western audiences, but also because the name mKhoj is not relevant to its current business model.
‘Khoj’ means ‘Search’ in Hindi and mKhoj used to be some kind of deal search or something like that when they first started. Nothing near the ad network stuff that are currently into.
Enjoy it on the way back machine: http://web.arch...aultSearch.aspx
This is good stuff! Nice to see them become a serious competitor in the ad network space. way to go!
I think at $1mn of gross revenue, they must be profitable now since most of the team sits in india. Smart move.
I had seen the company being mentioned, but always wondered how to pronounce it. This helps
Oh and I am glad to see the metrics. I dont think I have seen InMobi numbers like this before. This really helps analyze the players in the market. Brilliant!
$12 mn run-rate must be making them profitable – does anyone know?
I believe this must be one of the few product companies which seems to be on the path of success out of India. I actually believed that India / emerging markets would lead the path to new product companies in the mobile space. Guess, this is a great beginning.
Good luck!
The company has grown quite a lot in last 1 year. They seem to providing strong competition to existing ad networks since they have good scale.
Do they have plans to come to US? That would be great to see as that could create tough competition to existing US players.
Agreed that US is without any doubt the largest mobile advertising market currently, but InMobi has proven that its possible to grow the business significantly in East. Given that large number of mobile users are based in developing countries, the pace of growth in these places is just staggering. I fundamentally believe that it is impossible for any company in mobile business to ignore Asia, Africa etc anymore.
Super…. Best of luck for inMobi… Nice name…
Anyone know they’re penetration into the US markets?
“their”
Have worked a while with inmobi and they are very professional. Building a US presence with people on the ground. There will be some competition going forward I think.
The challenge is to build a working ecosystem for mobile advertising where both the advertiser and the network make a profit from the advertising. That is not always the case with the premium ad networks so players like inmobi and others are valuable. If Inmobi have most likely a very strong competitive advantage in a lower cost base out of India than some Valley players and European players.
Will be interesting to watch this play out.
Everything looks nice and rosy on the front, but when you do work or business with them, you will understand. It is just a matter of time before their business model will crumble cos they are their is not much profit that they make…..
Oh and I am glad to see the metrics. I dont think I have seen InMobi numbers like this before. This really helps analyze the players in the market. Brilliant!
The mobile population is bound grow around the world. However, it is necessary to bring down the prices of high end models in India. We have a lot of mobile users, but very few of them makes use of mobile apps.