Millennial Media Raises $16M Round, Reaches 79% Of US Mobile Users
Posted by Justin on Nov 16, 2009 in In The News, Marketing Strategy, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Marketing, Mobile Networks, Mobile News
With Google’s three-quarter billion dollar purchase of AdMob, it gives a sense of validation for the bright future of mobile advertising. The big players have begun to take notice at the innovation brewing at mobile-ad startups, and investors have as well.
Once such innovative startup, Millennial Media, announced today that they’ve secured a $16M series C round of financing to lead the company into its next phase of continued growth in the mobile display advertising segment.
With Millennial already reaching some 79 percent of the total US mobile Internet audience, the company will use it’s latest capital infusion to continue its international expansion, streamline its technology offerings, continue to forge relationships with handset, OS and service providers, and recruit world class talent to bolster its offerings.
Founded in 2006, Millennial has quietly secured itself as a major player in mobile display advertising, and has since found itself reaching more US consumers on mobile devices than any other media company large or small.
With the spotlight shining more brightly on mobile ad-networks, it should be interesting to see who goes after Millennial as their market share grows. As opposed to AdMob, Millennial doesn’t put all of its focus on the iPhone and iPhone apps — though they’ve reported that nearly 22.5 percent of their total ad-impressions comes directly from the iPhone — and instead focuses on the broad reach of display advertising via mobile devices as a whole. In the end, that type of approach will most likely prove beneficial to any big player that’s eying their next mobile acquisition.
mobiThinking | Nov 17, 2009 | Reply
While Millennial and AdMob are both mobile ad networks, their business model is quite different. The iPhone is maybe part of that, but it’s probably less about channels and more where they position themselves in the market. My understanding is that Millennial focuses on fewer, but more ‘premium’ publishers, whereas AdMob is mass market. The profiles of Millennial, AdMob and other mobile ad networks in this guide, shows how different mobile ad networks can be: http://www.mobithinking.com/mobile-ad-network-guide
Nicole Thompsen | Dec 15, 2009 | Reply