Glance is a subsidiary of InMobi, an Indian mobile ad business firm. InMobi’s Glance raises $45 million. The firm now prepares to scale its business internationally and bulk up its product offerings.
Glance got its newest fund from Mithril Capital. It is a growth-stage investment firm co-founded by Silicon Valley investors Peter Thiel and Ajay Royan.
Besides, the founder and CEO of InMobi said that as the financing round has not closed, the firm can bag another $30 million to $55 million.
Glance
Glance operates an eponymous service. It shows media content in local languages on the lock screen of Android-powered smartphones.
To support Glance’s services, InMobi has partnered with a number of top smartphone vendors and integrate it into their operating systems. That includes Xiaomi, Samsung, and Gionee. Thus, all new smartphone models launched by Samsung, Xiaomi, and Gionee have Glance on them.
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Glance was just launched in September last year. Besides, it supports various languages, including English, Hindi, Tamil, and Telugu.
Consequently, it has gained million monthly active users in India, as its primary market. Each day, users are spending an average of 22 minutes with Glance.
Glance does not use traditional ads. Instead, it shows a certain kind of content to drive engagement for brands. In the months to come, it plans to expand the platform and bring short-form videos (Glance TV), and mini-games (Glance Games) to the lock screen.
Besides, it is also working on a feature dubbed Glance Nearby that will enable brands to court users in their area. It also focuses on Glance Shopping to explore ways to build commerce around content.
InMobi plans to expand Glance outside of India. The company plans to take Glance to some Southeast Asian markets like Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand.
