InMobi Raises $200 Million For Mobile Ad Network; More Megaexchange Talk; LiveIntent Intends To Grow

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Megamobile

Mobile ad network InMobi announced a near-Groupon-like fund raise as the company has received a $200 million investment from Softbank. According to the release, Softbank and InMobi with opportunities to will “explore global scale collaboration (…). It is also expected to generate further synergies between InMobi and Softbank, given the significant number of prominent Asian Internet companies in Softbank’s investment portfolio.” With an investment this big, it would seem possible that existing investors may have taken money off the table. Read more. Regardless, this is another big affirmation of the mobile opportunity ahead.

More Megaexchange Talk

The Wall Street Journal’s Emily Steel digs into the weeds of the still publicly unannounced deal between Microsoft, Yahoo! and Aol for selling each other’s remnant inventory. Steel outlines one of the key missing details of the deal: “While each company will continue to sell ads directly to marketers, the new partnership would create one technology system for advertisers to buy and target their ads across sites…” What will be the technology system? Right Media Exchange, AppNexus, an interconnected mélange? Je ne sais pas. DIGIDAY’s Mike Shields also goes deep on the subject. And, Ad Age has a bit more from Ross Levinsohn on the deal here at PaidContent’s Ad conference.

Cash For Email Intent

LiveIntent (AdExchanger.com Q&A from Jan ‘ll), which positions itself as offering “real-time display ad serving within email” announced that it has raised $8 million in Series B financing led by new investor Shasta Ventures. According to a press release, “LiveIntent plans to use the funds for sales expansion, staff augmentation and technology development.” Read more.

The GRP Bubbleth

Nielsen appears to be moving forward with its plans for an online GRP (Gross Rating Point) system with the goal of helping advertisers better understand what they’re buying and sellers what they’re selling. MediaPost’s Joe Mandese reports that a Facebook panel will be the linchpin for the system codenamed “Deep Dive.” A part of Nielsen’s plan is to do a big sell job into big advertisers and agencies. Read it.

Google Announce Deals – For The Exchange

In a blog post on the Official Google blog, Google VP of Product Neal Mohan let loose with a few stats from the past year including the doubling of spending on Google Display Network, 350% growth in video ad CPMs and AdMob growth of 200%. In addition to the rollout of new mobile and video tools for DoubleClick For Publisher (DFP) clients, Mohan announced the “Direct Deals” feature and said “a news publisher could set aside all of the ad space on their sports page [, for example,] and offer it first to a select group of buyers at a specific price, and then if those buyers pass on the offer, automatically place that inventory into the Ad Exchange’s auction.” More details to come. Read the official Google blog post. And, read Google product director Scott Spencer’s Direct Deals intro post on the DFP blog or the Q&A on AdExchanger.com.

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Not For Sale!; Johnny On The Spotify

The Holy Rate Card

Looking to optimize the guaranteed, display ad future, Yieldex announced version 3.0 of its Revenue Planner module which it says “helps Yield Managers generate seasonal rate cards for their saleable products taking into account the historical sales and forecasted capacity for the inventory.” Read it.

Hail To The Chief

IPG’s Mediabrands announced that Quentin George, is the agency group’s new Chief Innovations Officer, “where he will oversee the growth and development of the group’s intelligence capabilities including the physical and virtual labs and MAGNAGLOBAL.” He previously held the role of Chief Digital Officer. George will report to Mediabrands CEO Matt Seiler. Read Brian Morrissey’s interview with George on DIGIDAY.

But Wait. There’s More!