Microsoft Invests In Mobile Marketing Firm Affle

Thursday, Feb 12, 2009

Microsoft has taken an undisclosed 20 percent minority stake in Singapore-based mobile marketing company Affle in its second round of funding, reports India’s Economic Times. Affle said that the partnership would help it quickly scale up its business globally and expand into the U.S., Europe and Australia. The company primarily operates in Asia, where India’s Bharti Airtel is its biggest customer.

In a statement, Affle said its SMS marketing service, SMS2.0, which unifies messaging, content browsing and search on the default text messaging screen, would be used to help boost the usage of many of Windows Live’s services and MSN content on mobile, while also creating a large volume of new mobile advertising inventory. Affle claims that it is the largest mobile media in India and delivers over 120 million monthly targeted impressions. In the past, it has raised funding of $10 million from Singapore based private-equity firms and individual investors in India.