$16 Million In New Funding For Millennial Media
Gail Chiasson, North American Editor
Baltimore-based Millennial Media, a major U.S. advertising network for mobile devices, has raised $16 million in new funding.
The move comes only a week after Google Inc. paid $750 million in stock to acquire Millennial’s competitor, AdMob Inc., of San Mateo, California.
Millennial Media’s management says that its new funding will be used to fuel its growth and international expansion – more specifically to scale up its operations, expand its presence in London, hire in engineering and sales, and deploy new programs for clients.
The $16 million in funding was part of a Series C round that was led by the Baltimore office of venture capital firm New Enterprise Associates, along with current investors Bessemer Venture Partners, Charles River Ventures and Columbia Capital.
Millennial, which launched in 2006, claims it reaches 79% of the country’s mobile Internet audience with the ads it serves.
Mobile ad spending will reach $416 million in 2009, and is expected to grow to more than triple, to $1.5 billion, in 2013, according to digital media research firm eMarketer, New York.
November 17th, 2009 at 09:18 @429
It’s interesting to see that Millennial is taking PE investment, when all the pundits were predicted a rash of sell-offs of mobile ad networks, following Google/AdMob. Perhaps this has something to do with the different business models of Millennial and AdMob? If you want to learn more about Millennial, AdMob and other ad networks may I suggest this guide to mobile ad networks: http://www.mobithinking.com/mobile-ad-network-guide