Rubbishing rumors of a possible acquisition by internet giant Google, Bangalore and San-Francisco-based InMobi has said that it would rather plan an initial public offering (IPO), according to a report published by The New York Times.
“InMobi was always talking to other companies about partnerships but we wanted to keep InMobi independent and eventually sell stock in an initial public offering,†the report mentioned Naveen Tewari, founder and CEO of the company as saying.
The entire talk began after The Economic Times published a report saying that Google was in talks to buy the company to counter Facebook's ad dominance.
The report said that the start-up was in talks with Google for a buyout for $2 billion.
Tewari also sent a mail to his employees declining any such possibility.
"We are building an amazing company in a huge market with a huge level of innovation and disruption and the disruption we are about to cause is no reason for us to look at any such deals," he said in the mail.
Set up in 2007, InMobi’s platform enables brands, publishers and developers to engage with global consumers through mobile advertising. The company is backed by investors such as SoftBank Corp, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Sherpalo Ventures. In 2011, it had struck what was at that time the largest deal in the mobile internet space in India with $200 million commitment from Japan’s SoftBank. The company has offices in India, the UK and the US, as well as in other global locations.
It currently employs over 800 people and had expanded its footprint into the rest of Asia, Europe and Australia.
Tewari also shared a light moment in the mail. He said," I totally enjoyed my day since morning and it’s fun to see everyone watching you and judging your every move and I've been smiling all day."
The company claims to have reached over a billion unique mobile devices across 200 countries in Q4, 2014. It also says it now receives over 6 billion ad requests on a daily basis, up from 4.8 billion in November 2014.
(Edited by Joby Puthuparampil Johnson)