InMobi plans $1-billion IPO on Nasdaq by the end of fourth quarter

The country’s first unicorn, mobile advertising technology platform InMobi, is launching an initial public offering (IPO) in the US for raising up to $1 billion, according to people in the know. 

The company is planning to list at Nasdaq by the end of the fourth quarter of this calendar year and expecting a $14-15 billion valuation.

According to the sources, the company is approaching merchant bankers, including Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and JPMorgan, and it expects to finalise the line-up quickly.

InMobi PTE, which is registered in Singapore, may not take the special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) route, which has been taken by many India-registered start-ups like RePower recently. A spokesperson of the company declined to comment on the IPO plan.

But, CEO Naveen Tewari in an interview with Business Standard recently had said the company was profitable and also scaling up, and that it needed a good reason to go for an IPO. And that would be mainly to look for acquisition and drive consolidation in the business, he said.

InMobi became a unicorn in 2011, when Softbank invested $200 million. Clearly, if the IPO valuation is achieved, the Japanese investor will have made multiple amounts of the initial investment. The company has not brought in any other investor, after Softbank. However, it is not clear whether the maverick investor will partly exit from the company.

Tewari has pointed out his company has had four continuous years of profits. Nearly 65 per cent of its revenues come from the US and it has an Ebitda margin of around 40-45 per cent, while growing at 45 per cent annually. 

In a competitive advertising online market where Google and Facebook reign supreme, InMobi has built a niche market. 

Tewari in the interview had pointed out that while 70 per cent the mobile advertising market is with the two big boys, the rest is an open field which accounts for 1.6 billion customers and over 20,000 mobile apps. “And this market is here to stay, partly because of the anti-trust moves by governments across the world and also companies themselves want to hedge their bets.” 

Experts say online mobile advertising companies are doing well in American stock markets, especially after Covid-19, and have been trading up to 5x their 2018 levels. These include Mobvista, Magnita, and Digital Turbine.   

The InMobi group started Glance two years ago and that has since become a unicorn with investors like Google. Glance uses a unique technology by utilising the lock screen to offer a range of content, from short videos and movie clips to news and sports. It has tied up with mobile device companies, such as Samsung, Xiaomi, and Vivo, to offer services and already has over 125 million users. 

While the company refused to comment, it has been in talks with TikTok to buy its Indian business. Not only that it is also getting into discovery-led e-commerce, taking on global players.