To counter the rising Facebook threat in advertising space, Google reportedly plans to acquire Indian-based mobile advertising network, InMobi. Google is holding acquisition talks with India-based mobile advertising network InMobi, according to a report from the Economic Times. The acquisition, if true, will mark the first Indian-based startup acquisition by the search engine giant.
Google plans to counter Facebook threat
With the acquisition Bengaluru-based InMobi, the internet giant would be planning to counter Facebook’s dominance in advertising on mobile devices. According to the report, Google would initiate the technology due diligence of InMobi followed by the discussions on commercial terms.
Citing a source, the report says that the dialogues between Google and InMobi started last September, and has resumed again now. The report, further, suggested that things were same last year both for Google and InMobi. Facebook did not pose a threat to Google back then, and InMobi was also assertive of raising another funding comfortably.
Of late, InMobi has been struggling as the ‘ad tech’ space that the company operates in has been facing headwinds globally with smaller players finding it tough to compete with brands like Facebook and Google.
Silicon Valley eying Indian firms
InMobi is helping some of the top rated companies to deliver appropriate advertisement to the right person at a right time, standing in competition with companies such as Google and Facebook. Companies such as Japan’s Yamaha Motor Co, Microsoft, Adidas, Lancome and US retailer Macy’s are some of its top clients.
The deal, if goes through, will be the biggest one in India among all the start-ups that have been acquired by the high profile Silicon Valley giants such as Facebook and Twitter. This year in January, Twitter bought Indian mobile marketing start up Zip dial for $30 million to enhance its capabilities in the mobile ad segment, primarily in the fast-growing emerging markets. Just a year before, the social networking giant, Facebook acquired Bengaluru-based Little Eye Labs, a start-up that specializes in analyzing mobile data.
There is no word over the financial details, but InMobi had been looking for the valuation of over $2 billion in its discussion for its next round of funding. As of now, there has been no comment on the matter from Google and InMobi.
