InMobi, India’s First Unicorn, Sets Sights On IPO After Returning Home

(Bloomberg) -- Mobile-advertising firm InMobi Pte is planning to go public in India in the second half of next year, seeking to capitalize on a booming stock market in the world’s fifth-largest economy.

SoftBank Group Corp.-backed InMobi, whose service lets companies place ads on mobile devices, will shift its corporate base to India from Singapore in early 2025 so that it can begin an initial public offering, Chief Executive Officer Naveen Tewari said in an interview. The move marks a homecoming for InMobi, which Tewari founded in Mumbai but incorporated in Singapore in 2007 to broaden its investor base.

“The opportunity in India from a global investor lens is significantly more now,” said Tewari, 47. “And then you have retail investors who are clearly leveraging the capital markets, especially to participate in technology stocks.”

InMobi, which competes with the likes of Meta Platforms Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google for ad sales, became India’s first venture capital-backed unicorn in 2011. A decade later, it aimed to list in its biggest market of the US, seeking a valuation of about $15 billion. But surging coronavirus infections and a tumble across US stock markets brought that plan to a grinding halt.

Now, a newfound vigor in Indian equities — spurred by the country’s swift economic growth — has boosted Tewari’s confidence in his home country’s capital markets. While some of India’s tech unicorns have slumped since their IPOs — fintech leader Paytm is down 80% since its 2021 listing — others such as food delivery startup Zomato Ltd. have seen their shares rise.

The US S&P 500 Index is dominated by tech stocks, and India is set to “go down that path over the next 10 years,” Tewari said.

InMobi is yet to appoint bankers to underwrite its IPO, he said, and didn’t give an estimate for the company’s valuation in a listing. InMobi is eyeing a valuation of about $10 billion, TechCrunch reported Thursday. InMobi didn’t comment on the number.

India’s stock market capitalization overtook Hong Kong’s for the first time in January, helped by the South Asian nation’s growth prospects and policy reforms as well as a retreat of global capital from China. India’s Nifty 50 Index has gained 13% so far this year, outperforming the MSCI Asia Pacific gauge’s 8% advance.

That’s spurred several Indian tech companies, which had domiciled themselves in more business friendly regions such as Singapore, to return home. Peak XV Partners-backed digital payments provider Pine Labs Pvt recently moved to India from Singapore and is considering raising about $1 billion in an IPO. Its shift echoed a similar step by Walmart Inc.-backed payments firm PhonePe took two years ago.

At least four or five tech companies could list in India in the fiscal year through 2026, especially firms that haven’t achieved the scale to attract IPO interest in the US, according to Gaurav Sood, managing director and head of equity capital markets at Avendus Capital.

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Indian startups’ homecoming comes at a time of a subdued IPO market in Singapore and widespread job cuts in the city-state’s tech startup economy. “Persistent layoffs throughout the global tech industry may keep the proportion of information and communications-related job cuts to total retrenchments in Singapore above pre-pandemic levels,” Bloomberg Intelligence analysts Catherine Lim and Trini Tan said in a report.

InMobi’s sales were little changed at $268 million in the fiscal year through March 2023, according to data aggregator Tracxn Technologies. The company has been profitable for some years, Tewari said.

Tewari, an alumnus of Harvard Business School, founded InMobi with fellow engineering and business-school peers. He then co-founded mobile content provider Glance in 2019, and InMobi is that company’s largest shareholder.

Glance, which counts Asia’s richest man Mukesh Ambani among its backers, is in advanced talks to raise as much as $250 million in a funding round led by existing backer Google, Bloomberg News reported previously.

--With assistance from Baiju Kalesh and Harshita Swaminathan.

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