Mumbai: Ad Tech pioneer InMobi Pte has reportedly appointed JP Morgan Chase, Jefferies Financial Services, Axis Capital and Kotak Mahindra Capital to lead its initial public offering (IPO). If all goes well, the Bengaluru- headquartered company could be valued between $5 billion to $6 billion.
According to reports, the IPO could be worth more than $500 million to $1 billion, InMobi has spent months laying the groundwork for this IPO, redomiciling itself from Singapore to India and raising $350 million in debt financing from Varde Partners, SeaTown Holdings, Elham Credit Partners, and other investors as it looks to buy back its shares from SoftBank and other shareholders. To date, InMobi’s founders have repurchased about $250 million of SoftBank’s stake to date, reducing its holding between 5-7%.
InMobi has been planning to get listed on the bourses for quite some time now, with its earlier plan to list in the US in 2021 being shelved. Founded in 2007 by Naveen Tewari, Abhay Singhal, Amit Gupta, and Mohit Saxena, InMobi rose to become India’s first tech startup achieving a $1 billion valuation in 2011 following an early investment from SoftBank. Since then, the company has risen to become a global advertising powerhouse, with its mobile advertising marketplace reaching 1.6 billion active devices across 165 countries. It has used OEM partnerships to pre-install its content discovery platform on Android devices and is now aiming to expand this with a creator-led infrastructure and increasing investments into R&D.
