MobSmith Launches Turnkey Mobile Ad Creation Platform

Leena Rao

Leena Rao is currently a Senior Editor for TechCrunch. She recently finished graduate school at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, where she studied business journalism and videography. From 2004 to 2007, she helped lead Congresswoman Carloyn Maloney’s community outreach and relations efforts in New York City. She graduated from Columbia University in 2003, where she was... → Learn More

Thursday, April 7th, 2011

The mobile advertising space is a multi-billion dollar market and startups and companies are battling it out for a piece of this very large (and growing) pie. Today, MobSmith is launching as a turnkey mobile ad creation platform to help advertisers create rich media, interactive ads for mobile phones.

MobSmith, which was formerly known as NearbyAd, allows advertisers to execute rich campaigns that can be personalized and targeted using criteria such as a user’s location, demographic, or publisher’s content.
The platform allows users to use dynamic changing content for personalized ads, gives users access to analytics and integrates with existing ad networks.

Ingrid Lestiyo, CEO and co-founder of MobSmith, says that clients who used products such as Doubleclick for Mobile found them to be insufficient for serving and targeting premium campaigns. She says her startup provides the tools and technology to execute premium, interactive campaigns at scale.

MobSmith, which is currently being used by NetShelter Technology Media and TripIt, just raised $575,000 from Blumberg Capital, XG Ventures, and various angel investors.

It should be interesting to see how MobSmith fares. Going head to head with Google’s DoubleClick is no easy feat. But that doesn’t mean the underdog can’t win.

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