$7 Million of Venture Capital for Smaato

Smaato, a Redwood Shores, CA start-up company dealing in the mobile advertising business, has raised $7 million in venture capital round B investment. This round of financing was led by EDBI of Singapore and with the participation of its existing shareholders, which include the private equity company Aeries Capital. The funds will enable Smaato to expand on an international level, particularly to extend the company’s presence in Asia.

Ms. Chu Swee Yeok, the Chief Executive Officer of EDBI stated that “Smaato is a leader in the mobile advertising optimization space with its highly innovative advertising optimization platform. As a digital advertising hub, Singapore is an ideal base for Smaato to address the fast growing mobile ad market in Asia, given the high concentration of ad networks, media agencies, and publishers here. EDBI looks forward to working closely with Smaato to partner key industry players leveraging on our networks in the region, and executing the company’s ambitious expansion plans in Asia.”

The co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Smaato, Ragnar Kruse, also said that “We have seen a tremendous growth in Smaato’s revenues in 2010. For 2011, we expect even more exponential growth by partnering with leading mobile publishers and app developers worldwide.” He also added that “Singapore has proven to be an excellent location to expand our Asian business. This new round of funding will help us improve our reach, foster product innovation and grow the Smaato team worldwide.”

The venture capital indicates the Singapore office aim to become a high tech company. This is believed to be due to the environment that has attracted tech giants like Groupon and Facebook to open offices there. Earlier this year, Smaato was recognized on the OnMedia 100 Top Private list for the third time for 2011 and it was selected from more than one thousand international technology companies. More than eleven thousand publishers signed up with Smaato to monetize the mobile content and Smaato is managing almost 20 billion ad requests each month. The company has 3 offices, one of which is in Hamburg, Germany. The current financing of $7 million comes after a series A funding round of $4.5 million from December 2009 and another series B funding of $3.5 million in 2008.