IDG invests $3Mn in Vserv

IDG Ventures India, a venture capital firm has extended a funding of $3 million in Vserv, a mobile In-App advertising company in India. Vserv has bagged this funding for its unique app 'Ad-Wrapper' solution for J2ME Apps globally, said a release.

The 'Ad-Wrapper' enables developers to monetize their apps with minimal effort and provides advertisers a unique medium to target the rapidly growing mobile audience. It supports over 500 phone models and allows new applications to be 'Ad-Wrapped' and monetized. With this funding, Vserv will extend its offerings to Android Apps as well, which are increasingly becoming important in emerging markets, said the release.

Since 2008, this is the IDG's first investment in mobile advertising segment. Manik Arora and Karan Mohla from IDG ventures will join Vserv Board of Directors. Vserv also works with WAP publishers. The company intends to provide advertising solutions into Android Applications. Vserv perceives a huge potential in India as the roll out of 3G is expected to augment the consumption of mobile data services and mobile apps.

Manik Arora, founder and managing director, IDG Ventures India, said, “While the mobile advertising industry is still relatively young, it is experiencing rapid growth driven by Mobile Internet growth and Mobile Apps growth. Within this, emerging markets are critical given their large and growing mobile phone installed bases - India alone has over 40 million Mobile Internet users and the largest market for J2ME App downloads.

Dippak Khurana, founder and CEO, Vserv, said “We are excited to have partnered with IDG Ventures, given their strong reputation in Internet and Mobile in India, Asia and the US. With the funds we plan to expand our sales and engineering teams to drive sales growth in India and internationally as well as further develop our monetization solutions for the global App developer community."