We recently wrote about InMobi, a mobile ad network that has seen success in Asia and Africa and was beginning to see traction in Europe. In order to jumpstart growth, InMobi has hired Rob Jonas, Google’s Director of Strategic Partnerships for Europe, Middle East and Africa to lead operations cor the mobile ad network’s European sector.
InMobi is currently being used in 37 countries around the world with over 7.5 billion ad requests monthly. In Europe alone, InMobi is now receiving 850 million mobile advertising requests monthly across all major European markets.
Jonas was previously responsible for Google’s largest commercial relationships in the European region. Before Google, Jonas was at Yahoo Europe. InMobi has raised a total of $7.6 million to date, starting out with a $500k seed round from a group of angel investors and followed up by a multi-million financing round led by Kleiner Perkins, Caufield & Byers and Sherpalo Ventures (the VC firm started by Ram Shriram, early backer and founding board member of Google).
Of course the big elephant in the room is Google’s recent acquisition of AdMob and how that will effect InMobi’s continued expansion into the U.S. and European markets. And there’s the possibility that Google could make a move to overtake InMobi’s stronghold in other countries.