InMobi Funds AI Acquisitions Before IPO

Adtech startup InMobi has raised $100 million in debt financing

The Indian company, already making money, wants to “significantly deepen” its AI efforts and pay for possible AI acquisitions before its planned IPO next year.

InMobi said Wednesday that the money came from Mars Growth Capital, a partnership between MUFG and Liquidity Group. Mars has recently invested in several companies in India. In the past few months, it has also backed the quick commerce startup Zepto and the website Infra. Market.

InMobi, which has users like Mastercard, Samsung, Vodafone, and Coca-Cola and is backed by SoftBank, has been actively exploring AI advances to improve ad interactivity for the past two years. TechCrunch previously reported that the business, which works with tens of thousands of app developers in more than 50 countries, recently developed ways to make native ads look like they belong in content.

Glance is a unicorn startup running an Android lock screen app, and InMobi owns that company. Technology news site TechCrunch says the Android platform is also in talks to raise more than $200 million.

InMobi wants to be worth about $10 billion in its initial public offering, which is set to happen in India next year. TechCrunch reported that the company hopes to make over $700 million annually by the end of March.

The MARS Growth Capital debt financing is one of the biggest deals the investment company has encountered.

Ron Daniel, co-founder and CEO of Liquidity Group and CEO of Mars Growth, said, “Liquidity is committed to growing the Asian tech ecosystem through its JV with MUFG, Mars Growth.”