Gordon Shields, the telecoms and environmental entrepreneur and investor, is one of the major backers in this round of funding.
This latest round of investment follows a period of considerable growth and success for Adfonic which has seen the company grow its revenues ten-fold over the last 12 months, increase its network of publisher sites and apps to more than 8,000 and drive monthly ad requests across the network to over 15 billion.
Thousands of campaigns are run across the network each month by major brands including Peugeot, Yell, Tesco, Skype, Groupon, Google and many more, giving them access to an estimated audience of 100 million mobile unique users.
The investment will be used to support the company’s growth strategy with a focus on international expansion, further enhancing the platform capabilities and recruiting across key business functions. Several new local offices are set to be operational across Europe, North America and Asia-Pacific by the end of 2011. The company will be making a series of hires across its advertising operations, product development, engineering and marketing functions - with headcount set to rise by 150 percent within the next 12 months. Continued investment in product development will ensure the availability of additional tools and functionality to maximise advertiser and publisher performance.
Victor Malachard, CEO, Adfonic said: “This market is growing at a terrific pace and I’m delighted with the progress we’ve made over the last two years. This further round of investment will be used to consolidate our dominant position in the European market and to accelerate the tremendous momentum we have across the globe. We have a clear strategy for growth underpinned by further international expansion, recruitment across core functions and enhancements to our leading-edge platform.”
Shields commented: “I have been an investor in Adfonic from day one and the expertise of the management team, the quality of the Adfonic offer and the growth potential of the market means the company is ideally placed to lead in this industry. The impressive track record achieved so far and the robust plans for the future give me great confidence that the company will remain at the forefront of the rapidly growing mobile advertising industry.”
Worldwide mobile advertising revenue is forecast to reach $3.3 billion in 2011, more than double the $1.6 billion generated in 2010, according to Gartner. Worldwide revenue will reach $20.6 billion by 2015.