Mobile advertising is scorching hot. A few days earlier, Cambridge-based mobile search and advertising services company JumpTap had announced it closed US$26 million in Series D funding.
Now Southeast Asia’s wireless social networking and advertising startup, BuzzCity, has bagged US$10 million growth capital financing from new investor integrated media giant, Naspers, that now holds a 25% stake in the company.
This is encouraging news in a region where enterprising initiatives have typically been stymied by a dearth of private venture capital funds, particularly in Singapore although the government is actively trying to promote entrepreneurship with investment incentives.
Buzzcity was started up in 1999 and it’s targeted at the fast growing group in emerging markets who are accessing the Internet on phones, PCs, Blackberry, and iPhone in the 20-35 age group.
This third round of funding will be utilized to fuel growth and expansion for its wireless community, MyGamma, brainchild of Singapore-based BuzzCity, and its network of sites, particularly in South Africa, India and Thailand.
The company claims a strong advertising base that hit 1.7 billion paid ad impressions in July 2008. India is BuzzCity’s second largest market after Indonesia, with reportedly 1.21 billion and 669 million ad impressions respectively.
The number of myGamma users has grown exponentially, reaching 2.7 million registered users across 70 countries and traffic to myGamma network of partner sites has exceeded 6 billion pageviews in the first half of 2008, according to the press release.
Naspers is the South African parent of MIH India Global Internet, the holding company for Indian Internet properties like ibibo.com, dwaar.com, and ad network AdWinks. The media giant has a 36.1% stake in Tencent, a leading Chinese internet operator with the largest instant messaging community in China and the world.
Naspers also owns 30% of Abril, Brazil’s largest magazine publisher and one of Latin America’s biggest media companies, and operates mobile TV in partnership with sub-Saharan Africa’s biggest mobile operator MTN.
