InMobi: The First Unicorn of India

By Sonali Munda

About:

InMobi (formerly known as Mkhoj) was founded by Naveen Tewari in 2007. It is an Indian multinational customer-centric mobile advertising platform. This tech-based company facilitates its clients' growth by helping them to engage their audiences and drive real/potential connections. Its headquarters are in Bengaluru, India. It is the first mobile advertising platform in India and made its entry into the unicorn club of India in September 2011. 

Apart from being a mobile advertising platform, InMobi Group also houses a lock screen content platform called "Glance", as a subsidiary company since 2017. It is a live commerce platform that shows advertisements on the user's lock screen on their mobile phones. In November 2019, Glance acquired "Roposo" on a live entertainment e-commerce platform to expand its services through a video platform. Glance also acquired Mumbai-based social commerce startup "Shop101" in an undisclosed cash and stock deal. Glance further acquired an Indian gaming company "Gambit Sports Pvt Ltd.", to increase its hope of building the biggest platform for NFT-based live gaming experience for Gen-Z. It forms its business-to-consumer (B2C) business.

Investors:

KPCB and Sherpalo Ventures invested up to $8 million in 2010 and Japanese tech conglomerate SoftBank Group has reportedly transferred about 40% of its shareholding in this startup recently. However, speaking from the beginning, the very first funding was from Mumbai Angels in August 2006 $500000. After rebranding the company from Mkhoj to InMobi these investors KPCB and Sherpalo Ventures raised a total of $215.6 million in three rounds. The startup received $7.1 million in Series A funding and $8 million in Series B funding in 2008 and 2010, respectively from KPCB. Later, in 2011, SoftBank invested $200 million and dealt it out in two installments; the first installment of $100 million in 2011 and in 2012 another $100 million. With a total of $215.6 million as stated before. 

Current Valuation:

Its current market value is $12 billion to $15 billion. 

              

Competitors:

InMobi’s competitors and alternatives are:

• Google

• Facebook

• Adform

• Adobe

• Criteo

• MediaMath

• Amazon

• Meta

• Yahoo

History of Achieving the Unicorn Status:

InMobi, which was formerly known as mKhoj, was founded in 2007, by Naveen Tewari along with his friends cum business partners for this startup, Mohit Saxena, Amit Gupta, and Abhay Singhal. mKhoj (or, mobile khoj, which means “mobile search”) before getting rebranded as InMobi, provided SMS-based search engine services. But later in 2008, when the founder observed that there is nearly no or very less scope in SMS marketing and that it remained limited to SMS only, he decided to change it to a mobile advertising company that would operate on the lockscreens of the mobiles. The business then got scaled up and rebranded as “InMobi”. Also, the idea of SMS marketing was quite replicable whereas, the later had a brand new concept and the business model of which was difficult to replicate. The reason why is that it is called a “mobile-first platform” providing the publishers/ brands to engage with the consumers through contextual mobile advertising. The startup was sustaining well through self funding until one day situations went worse and the company got almost broke. It was when they got funded by Mumbai Angels of $500000. This funding was like an aid to InMobi as they were almost about to get closed. 

InMobi had some really great insight options which it provided to its clients like good interface, more data options, more target options and many more. Companies like Samsung, entrepreneur’s magazine, all started using InMobi for their businesses. This turned Google into one of its main competitors and made InMobi earn the title of India’s first ever unicorn startup in 2011. 

SWOT Analysis:

Swot is an acronym for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. A SWOT analysis is a study or a powerful tool that describes a company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. It helps to develop business strategies for start-ups as well as established companies:

Strengths- 

• Geographically it is widely spread and present in different regions. Its business reach is high reaching the target market and easy accessibility. 

• Quite strong availability on different social networking sites and efficient social media management.

• The strong financial position of Inmobi can help the firm to make further investments.

• Its operational efficiency is improved with well-developed and efficiently integrated IT infrastructure.

• Advertising performance rises with high product quality which also creates brand loyalty.

• Inmobi being a service-oriented company has competent and committed human capital. 

• Inmobi has generated a wide range of patents and copyrights that makes its product offering exclusive, thwarting its competitors in various industries like marketing and mobile.

• Being a multinational company, it has got a wide workspace diversity.  

Weaknesses-

• Poor inventory management can make the company lose its efficiency.

• The insufficient or shortage of cash affects the company’s liquidity position. 

• Insufficiency in the company’s budget for promotion and marketing lessens its opportunity to expand its customer base and encourage repeat purchase. 

• The company’s performance declines due to less expenditure on research and development activities resulting in poor local and international market knowledge.

• Low morale and high work pressure make the workforce less productive.

• Poor customer service ( like insufficient customer complaint handling) can affect the goodwill and brand loyalty of the company. 

• The decision-making takes way longer resulting in delays in introducing new products in the market.

• Poor project management due to low morale and less productivity in the employees weakens the ability to open new branches and expand the product line.

Opportunities-

• More consumption of consumer goods and services is possible through improvement in customers’ standard of living.

• The rapid growth in the population, particularly in the existing and potential customer segments is great for the growth of the company.

• Reducing the interest rates makes the fundraising and financing at quite a lower cost.

• Business and production line expansion opportunities are increased through the emergence of new market segments and new niches.

• If InMobi ensures a strong online presence on different social media sites, then, the arrival of e-commerce and social media marketing can be a great success.

• InMobi enjoys a great external environment factor of getting provided by subsidies and other policies from the government to make the business environment more friendly.

• The integration of advanced technology can improve efficiency by decreasing costs and resulting in innovative products.

• There is a great opportunity for rising profits due to its global market and widely spread customer base all over the world. 

Threats-

• No proper promotion and marketing practices can lead to one of the threats to this company.

• The increasing number of competitors on social media platforms with efficient social media management affects the sustainability and expansion of potential and existing customer base.

• Lack of skilled labor and workforce fails to attract talent with the right skill set.

• Inflation increases the cost of production affecting the business profitability. 

• The constant change in the regulatory framework and introduction of new stricter rules is also one of the major threats to this company.