How InMobi's 'Miip' is helping Patym reach out to 120 million users

Miip, the animated monkey launched by InMobi, will offer users product suggestions based on their searches on Paytm, reports Tech in Asia

Indian adtech firm InMobi announced it has partnered with mobile commerce platform Paytm. The deal will give Paytm’s merchants access to InMobi’s 120 million users, according to the company statement. And it’s going to do it with some help from a cute animated character.
 

InMobi launched Miip, an animated monkey to replace traditional banner ads on mobile. The cute simian character offers product suggestions to users based on their searches. It also provides an option to buy directly from the app, which means users don’t need to navigate elsewhere to buy that quirky phone cover Miip showed them.
 

InMobi’s suggestion technology will also provide recommendations on Paytm’s planned digital store section, which will feature games, videos and music.

The number of smartphones worldwide is expected to cross two billion this year, so mobile adtech is only going to get hotter.
 

Last month, another German start-up, Glispa, unveiled a product called gNative which has been quietly helping e-commerce titans like Flipkart and Alibaba drive user acquisition with native ads in mobile apps. Both Flipkart and Amazon are heavily funded players, having raised over $1 billion.
 

Paytm is upping its game in e-commerce through several initiatives. In another move, founder Vijay Sekhar Sharma today revealed that Paytm invested in media firm NDTV’s e-commerce venture Gadgets 360°, which is valued at around $50 million. The size of the deal remains undisclosed.
 

The other investors include Inflexionpoint, Genpact founder Pramod Bhasin, Unilever’s ex-chairman Vindi Banga, and M&S founder Hiro Mashita.
 

Paytm is the fourth most heavily funded ecommerce player after Flipkart, Amazon and Snapdeal. It raised a reported $575 million from Ant Financial earlier this year. Its other investment includes motor rickshaw hailing app Jugnoo.

This is an excerpt from Tech in Asia. You can read the full article here.