Telecom Lead Asia: SingTel Innov8, a venture capital arm
of SingTel, has invested in Nexage, a mobile advertising exchange.
Besides SingTel Innov8, existing investors Relay Ventures
and GrandBanks Capital participated in the $10 million Series B financing.
“Mobile advertising has quickly shifted from an
experimental market to being an integral part of the advertisers’ ability to
reach and compel consumers. Nexage is well-positioned to be one of the winners
in this rapidly growing market,” said Punit Chiniwalla, director of
Investments for SingTel Innov8.
Nexage will use the funding to expand its products and
technology, global reach, and ecosystem of buyers and sellers to accelerate
liquidity in the mobile advertising industry.
According to the IAB, mobile advertising spend grew 149
percent in 2011.
According to Gartner, mobile advertising revenue will
reach $20 billion by 2015.
Mobile RTB (real-time bidding) platform it provides
real-time discovery and targeting capabilities. IDC predicts that RTB will
support 27 percent of ad spend by 2015.
Nexage’s RTB exchange grew in bid volume by more than 70
percent per month in 2011.
Nexage connects over 300 publishers and developers with
over 150 demand sources.
“RTB is critical to the market’s ability to meet
this extraordinary opportunity, providing the requisite efficiency and
liquidity and the unique real-time discovery and targeting capabilities that
are essential to advertisers. With this financing in place, we will extend our
RTB leadership and help drive the growth and maturity of the mobile advertising
market,” said Ernie Cormier, CEO and president of Nexage.
Recently, Nexage released the Nexage Ad Server 2.0, added
publishers including Dictionary.com and ZeptoLab (developer of Cut the Rope),
and added buyers such as MediaMath and Drawbridge.
“We have had the pleasure of being part of the
Nexage story from the start, and we are very excited to be part of this round
of financing,” said John Albright, co-founder and managing partner of Relay
Ventures.
