Amobee Media Systems Receives Funding from Vodafone to Grow its Mobile Advertising Business

SAN FRANCISCO & LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Amobee Media Systems, the world leader in mobile advertising solutions for mobile operators today announced that Vodafone has made a strategic minority investment in the company, joining Sequoia Capital, Accel Partners and Globespan in funding Amobee through its next stage of development.

Amobee Media Systems was founded in May of 2005 in order to ad-fund the mobile industry as a whole, enabling all players in the mobile content and data value chain to generate new revenues from advertising. Its software solution supports digital ad delivery to all mobile content and communication types, including WAP and mobile web, mobile games, mobile video and mobile messaging. The company launched its first live consumer trial in March of 2006 and has now several commercial operator launches including Vodafone in Greece, Czech Republic and Spain.

The Amobee management team, comprising of a strong core of executives with a combination of wireless, advertising, and interactive media experience, have produced a best-of-breed solution, tailor made for mobile operators and most capable to address unique challenges when it comes to creating a successful mobile advertising model. The advertising impressions occur in a relevant, contextual and non-intrusive manner thus giving users control over the engagement.

“Mobile internet is fast emerging as a mainstream information, entertainment and transaction source for people on the move. We see a tremendous opportunity for brands to target segments that traditional media reach less efficiently and help them run truly integrated communication campaigns.” says Frank Boulben, Vodafone’s Director of Strategic marketing & Communication Planning. “We’re working with Amobee in three markets to develop mobile advertising approaches that will deliver revenue for Vodafone whilst ensuring our customers enjoy a richer mobile experience, “

"Today, Amobee reaches a new stage in its development. This investment and the recently announced commercial launches demonstrates that Amobee has the best operator centric ad-serve in the market” said Zohar Levkovitz, CEO and Co-Founder of Amobee Media Systems “With Vodafone’s investment and blessing, we are poised to become the world's premier provider of mobile ad-serving solutions”

Mobile advertising presents an unprecedented potential to increase reach for advertisers. According to Pyramid Research, by 2010, one billion new mobile subscribers will join the current base of 2.8 billion. Further, according to Informa, worldwide mobile advertising will rise to $11.35 billion in 2011.

About Amobee Media Systems:

Amobee Media Systems has built and designed the first and only telco-grade ad-serving solution 100% dedicated to mobile operators, allowing them to dynamically insert advertising impressions in all forms of mobile communication and content: WAP Browsing, Video & Music, SMS, MMS, and Games etc... Amobee’s complete ad serving solution is designed to facilitate the launch of advertising campaigns for brand building, direct response and lead generation campaigns helping mobile operators and their subscribers “get more for less”. The company has also engaged advertisers and media buying agencies to directly purchase ad inventory as part of Amobee’s growing advertising network.

Amobee’s media system is capable of supporting everything from in-game and in-video to in-wap and in-message mobile impression insertions. The insertions occur with full user consent and are made in a relevant, contextual and non-intrusive manner thus increasing the media value while giving users control over the engagement.

Headquartered in the San Francisco, the company enjoys financial backing from some of the biggest names in venture capital: Accel Partners (www.accel.com [1]), Sequoia Capital (www.sequoiacap.com [2]), and Globespan (www.globespancapital.com [3]). Amobee has commercial offices in London and San Francisco, with R&D in Herzliya, Israel.