Adtech startup InMobi is seeking a valuation of around $10 billion in its planned initial public offering next year, two sources familiar with the matter told TechCrunch.
The company is planning to list in India, the people said, asking not to be identified as the discussions are private. InMobi is profitable and plans to relocate its headquarters to India from Singapore in the coming months, the people added.
If the IPO goes ahead in India at a $10 billion valuation, it would be one of the largest listings by a domestic software startup. Most startups to go public in India in recent years have aimed for valuations below $5 billion. Paytm, which listed at a $20 billion valuation in 2021, has since seen its market capitalization fall to $3.5 billion.
InMobi plans a group-level listing that would include its advertising unit and an investment and ownership stake in Glance, a unicorn startup that runs an Android lock-screen platform, the people added.InMobi expects to achieve annual sales of more than $700 million by the end of March, one of the people said.
An InMobi spokesman declined to comment Wednesday.
Founded in 2007, InMobi was India's first startup to become a unicorn, but it had a rocky start as it struggled to gain a foothold in the digital advertising space dominated by Google and Meta.
InMobi operates a comprehensive advertising platform that integrates demand-side and supply-side technology with a large-scale ad exchange. The company serves tens of thousands of app partnerships across 50 countries. Current clients include Mastercard, Samsung, Vodafone, Ford, Kellogg's, L'Oreal Paris, Nokia, Kia, KFC, Dell and Coca Cola.
InMobi has raised just under $300 million to date, and its backers include SoftBank, which previously wrote off its investment in the startup.
Over the past decade, the company has expanded its advertising business and built a consumer-facing business that it leverages into Glance.
Glance displays news, local event information, sports, media content, games and more directly on the lock screen of your Android phone. The app is installed on more than 450 million smartphones, with approximately 300 million of those active. TechCrunch reports that Glance recently began testing in the US.
The company plans to soon release an improved version of Glance that incorporates generative AI to give users a personalized feed and experience, and one feature will let users see themselves wearing clothes from different brands, according to an internal demo seen by TechCrunch.
Because Glance doesn't collect personal data about its users, it was limited in its ability to provide a tailored experience. InMobi believes generative AI can help the app adapt to users' preferences and deliver an experience that draws users to the platform and drives commerce.
InMobi plans to roll out similar generative AI services to its advertising business to enable the creation and insertion of native ads into a wide range of content, according to the demo.