Google leads $145 million investment in InMobi’s Glance and Roposo social platforms

Google led an investment of $145 million in InMobi’s social media startups Glance and Roposo, which are divisions of InMobi’s mobile app marketing business.

The deal is a boost for India’s tech market, where InMobi and multiple other unicorns (startups valued at a billion dollars or more) have surfaced in recent years.

Glance makes a lock-screen platform that helps users see personalized content on the display while their phones are locked. InMobi created the social startup as a separate division in March 2019 and acquired Roposo, a video-sharing social media platform, in November 2019.

The money comes from Google’s India Digitization Fund, which with $100 million is the largest investor in the round. Existing Glance investor Mithril Partners also participated.

Glance at a glance

Above: Glance is a division of InMobi.

Image Credit: Glance

Glance is an AI-driven lock-feed platform that provides personalized content in multiple languages — including English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, and Bahasa — on the lock screen of Android smartphones. Glance’s Lockfeed delivers trending content across entertainment, sports, fashion, news, and other content categories in a visual format that is easy to view.

Glance will use the money to expand its technology team, launch new services on the platform, strengthen the brand, and drive expansion in key markets across Asia and the U.S.

Google VP Caesar Sengupta said in a statement that too many Indians still have trouble finding content to read or services they can use confidently in their own language. This significantly limits the value of the internet for these users, particularly this year, when the internet is a lifeline for so many people, Sengupta said.

Glance has more than 115 million daily active users who spend 25 minutes per day on its platform. That makes it one of the largest digital consumer platforms in the world.

Roposo’s videos

Roposo is India’s short video platform, with more than 33 million monthly active users who spend 20 minutes daily consuming content across multiple genres in more than 10 languages. The Roposo app had been downloaded more than 103 million times on the Google Play Store as of November 2020. It’s probably no accident that Roposo is prospering now, since China’s TikTok app has been banned as a result of tensions between the two countries.

InMobi Group focuses on advertising, marketing, data, and content platforms. Both Glance and Roposo are based in Bengaluru, India, while InMobi has headquarters in San Francisco and Bengaluru. InMobi has over 1,400 employees globally, and Glance employs 400 people.