InMobi Launches d-Commerce Platform Miip

The world’s largest independent mobile advertising network, $2.5 billion Bangalore-based InMobi, has launched a disruptive ad discovery platform Miip

$2.5 billion Bangalore-based InMobi is the world’s largest independent mobile advertising platform, and one of India’s most famous unicorns. It is also the unlikely challenger to Facebook and Google as one of the few mobile advertising networks with a reach of over one billion unique users. And with the launch of its new ad discovery product Miip, InMobi’s hold over the market looks set to continue.

InMobi reaches over one billion mobiles

Founded in 2007 by Naveen Tewari, a McKinsey consultant and Harvard MBA alumni, alongside fellow Indian Institute of Technology graduates Amit Gupta, Mohit Saxena, and Abhay Singhal, InMobi is a performance based ad network that was mobile-only before that was even a thing.  Huge in scale, it now reaches over one billion unique mobile devices across 200 countries and receives over 6 billion ad requests each day. In Europe, which accounts for over 230 million of its monthly unique active users, InMobi reaches over 50% of the region’s mobiles.

With a global presence, the company counts 17 offices worldwide, located in India, the US, the UK, the UAE, France, China, Korea, Malaysia, Taiwan, Australia, and Japan. Its staff count has swelled to 800. And while InMobi does not declare its figures, Tewari reports that the company’s total year-on-year revenue grew 80% in 2015. In recognition, InMobi has received significant funding from Japan’s Soft Bank, VC firm Kleiner Perkins Caulfield and Byers (KPCB), and Sherpalo Ventures, and counts companies such as Ben & Jerry’s and Kia as clients.

Although there have been several acquisition rumours – the first involving Google and the most recent involving Microsoft -, the company is quick to dismiss the reports. Instead, Tewari has revealed that InMobi is working towards an IPO. But not before he has built what he hopes will be one of the largest tech companies in the world. The overall estimated advertising market is predicted to reach $650 billion in 2020, with mobile advertising claiming a $200-$250 billion share. Tewari has his sights set on a significant part of that.

Miip and the rise of d-Commerce

In a step towards achieving that goal, InMobi has launched a disruptive, discovery led, d-commerce product, Miip, a platform which transforms advertising into moments of discovery which can be directly converted into shopping experiences.

Users are becoming increasingly frustrated with invasive advertising which is often selected without relevance. Miip instead aims to transform advertising on a mobile into a personalised, content-rich experience. Running across thousands of native mobile apps, the platform curates a set of products or content around a unifying theme that responds to a user’s real-time mood and emotions, which appear in a visually pleasingly way, relatively unobtrusively. Then turning advertising into actual sales, the user can instantly purchase any product that they see and like through a secure payment system (enabled by Stripe in the US, Alipay in China, and Paytm in India) without moving outside of the app.

Miip platform

In a statement, Tewari commented: “Ads today have forgotten the protagonist of the story – the user. With Miip, we will put the user ahead of everyone else, and deliver a consistent, personalised and content-rich experience that users will fall in love with.” He continues: “We believe d-commerce through Miip can drive up to 80% of new product discoveries for merchants and aspire to enable almost 50% of mobile transactions for mobile commerce merchants in the country within the next 12-24 months.”

Miip appears as an animated mascot in the form of a monkey which dynamically engages with the user via bubbles of text to learn and refine recommendations based on their reactions and emotions. Each app developer can integrate Mipp, customising their advertising to create the right experiences for their users, resulting in discovery experiences that complement their app.

Launched in India at the end of last year, Miip has already partnered with Indian Amazon, Spotify, and fashion retailer RealReal, along with a number of other online sites. InMobi is targeting a revenue of $1 billion through Miip alone by 2017.