Google is to buy mobile display ad firm AdMob for €500 million in stock.
The Silicon Valley company was founded in 2006 by Omar Hamoui “when he couldn't find good ways to generate traffic for his mobile site,” Google said on the company blog.
The deal adds a mobile display ad business to Google’s mobile search function.
“For advertisers who want to reach users when they are engaged with mobile content, this deal will bring better, more relevant ads and greater reach,” said Susan Wojcicki, vice president product management, and Vic Gundotra, vice president engineering.
“We believe that great mobile advertising products can encourage even more growth in the mobile ecosystem,” they added.
AdMob says it reaches 52% of US mobile web users, serving billions of mobile ads a month. It also offers well-respected analytics tools on mobile advertising.
It promises it can help advertisers “reach your audience on mobile devices as they browse the mobile web or interact with mobile applications with banner, text link, or rich-media display ads.” Its clients include Adidas, Comedy Central, EA, GAP, Land Rover, Marriott and Microsoft.
The start-up’s backers include Sequoia Capital, Accel and DFJ Growth Fund.
Meanwhile, unconfirmed reports claim that Google has also acquired VoIP start-up Gizmo 5 for an estimated €20 million.
According to industry blog TechCrunch, the acquisition is close to being announced.
Skype, which had been looking for a plan B solution for its proprietary P2P back-end, was in discussion with the start-up last month. However, talks are understood to have ended following Skype’s legal settlement with its founders last week.
In the wake of that settlement, Google is understood to have made the offer for the asset, which already integrates with Google Voice, and can be used a softphone endpoint for Google phone users.
Gizmo5, which has raised around €4 million in VC funding since launch in 2003 is run by dotcom entrepreneur Michael Robertson, the founder music site MP3.com.