Mobile ad network company InMobi has acquired US-based company Sprout, which provides a platform for creating HTML5-based rich media ads for mobile phones.
Company officials said that since InMobi is privately held, it would not disclose the price for which Sprout was acquired, but said that it was a cash and equities deal.
Speaking to the media, Mr Naveen Tewari, Founder and CEO, InMobi, said, “The interaction that people have with a rich media ad is ten times the interaction that people have with a traditional ad on a mobile phone.”
While many people are keen on rich media ads, the cost and the time involved make this difficult, said Mr Atul Satija, Vice-President and Managing Director, Asia Pacific, InMobi. “Typically, creating a rich media ad takes three to four weeks and costs around $10,000-15,000. We are offering this for free with the Sprout platform and it will take companies around one hour to create the ad,” he said.
InMobi, which was founded in 2007, said it serves 366 billion ads a month on mobile devices, of which over 8 billion impressions are from India.