Mobile Advertising Firm mGinger Gets $2 Million From DFJ, NEA Indo-US
Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ) and NEA Indo-US ventures have jointly invested $2 million (or Rs 8 crore) in Bangalore-based start-up, mGinger. DFJ has put in $1.5 million and NEA Indo-US the remaining $500K, according to DFJ Venture Partner Sateesh Andra as he spoke to ContentSutra. mGinger runs a permission-based mobile advertisement service, whereby mobile users are paid to receive ads on their mobile.
The company will use proceeds of the financing to build up their technology stack and ramp up their marketing and sales force. mGinger uses the permission-based model advertising from the current intrusive way of marketing on mobile phones where customers dictate the type of advertisements received. The mGinger platform claims to solve critical problems like content composition, cost of campaign and return on investment measurability for advertisers. Employing the opt-in permission based advertising in the mobile marketing segment, mGinger cliams to have snagged close to 1 million subscribers already.
The company currently operates in Bangalore and Hyderabad but we will soon start operations in Mumbai, Delhi and Chennai. This investment was made out of DFJ’s $75 million India corpus fund. It is the sixth investment in India for Menlo Park-based DFJ, which typically invests in seed and early stage ventures. Reva, Komli, MChek (mobile payments) and LiveMedia are among their investments.
