<article>Numbers may not tell the full story; but they do give a fair idea of the plot, something that  has definitely not been lost as far as the growth of Singapore-based location intelligence company,  <a href="http://www.adnear.com" target="_blank">AdNear</a>, is concerned.</article>

Numbers may not tell the full story; but they do give a fair idea of the plot, something that  has definitely not been lost as far as the growth of Singapore-based location intelligence company,  <a href="http://www.adnear.com" target="_blank">AdNear</a>, is concerned.
AdNear, which recently raised a record $19 million in Series B funding round, seems to have trumped the number game. Going by the numbers alone, it can be the fastest growing startup in the region, and probably in Asia.
Down to the numbers: It has been adding 1.2 million anonymous devices to its user base every day for over 12 months now. The company&#8217;s October financing round surpassed taxi-booking app GrabTaxi’s  $15 million funding (done earlier in the year), marking AdNear&#8217;s Series B funding the largest ever for the city-state.
Singapore-based Shobhit Shukla, who oversees ‘sales and partnerships’ for Adnear claims that this was the largest Series B round for any global company in this space. The company has increased it&#8217;s users base from 25 million users in October last year, to over 530 million users, currently.
In a freewheeling interview, Shukla talks about the company’s journey so far, its logic for relocating their HQ to Singapore from Bangalore, and also about the challenges that lie around the corner. Edited Excerpts.
How does AdNear differentiate itself from other players in the mobile advertising space?
The way marketing has been driven so far is to target a consumer, based on what he is consuming. So if I am watching a football match on TV, I am most likely to be a male, aged 18 to 31 and a professional. If you are on a certain website on your laptop, you are most likely a professional interested in finance. Assumptions are made on the content consumed.
The mobile phone enables us to go a step further and add real world location data to the content you are consuming. For example: how often do you go the airport? That tells me how frequently you travel rather than how often you look at a flight booking app.
We are looking at real-world locations where you are during most of your time. Adnear is a company uses this data to understand user behaviour and aggregate it (data), in a form that is relevant to marketers. We have built our own IP, where we have literally driven around all the places we are present, to capture cell tower and WiFi signals, which are publicly available. We have used this to map them to the location coordinates. The signal combination to every place is unique.
We created a hardware box and put it in the back of taxis, and as the taxis drive around, the box is catches all these signals – even if the user’s GPS is switched off, we are able to use the cell tower and Wifi signals to get their location; and we aggregate this over a period of time.
We also look at where you have been in the past – if you have been to the airport three times in the last one month, you could be a business traveller and I can, maybe, show you a commercial of an airline. That is the fundamental play on how we can use location as a data point to understand the behaviour.
It is all anonymous – I don’t know your name or who you are, but I know your device – on the same device, the next time you are at home and watching a video, I can show you a related video or a banner ad from an airline.
From our perspective, it is interesting because the quality of data that you get from this device (mobile phone) is massive – the kind of phone you are on, your location, what kind of apps that you use, what operating system you are on – this itself can tell quite a bit about the person. The quality and breadth of data has a multiplier effect, especially in these markets.
If you look at Asia, all these are mobile first markets – so many people who have never used a laptop or a PC go on to the mobile directly. This is also a phenomenal opportunity for entrepreneurs. Probably the best example see the way Facebook is on mobile– look at the growth of their revenue from mobile over the last 18 months – they are actually a mobile first company.
Take us through your latest round of funding. You had raised $6.3 million from VC firms <a href="http://www.dealstreetasia.com/stories/indonesias-takopediaa-raises-100m-from-softbank-sequoia/" target="_blank">Sequoia Capital </a>and <a href="http://www.canaan.com" target="_blank">Canaan Partners</a>, but now you have gone for strategic investors in Australia’s <a href="http://www.telstra.com.au" target="_blank">Telstra</a> and Japan’s Global Brian. What about a Series C round? What about partnering with a telco in large markets like China or India?
In the ad tech technology space, this (the company&#8217;s) is the largest Series B globally. We saw strong growth in the past few months, and we thought it was the right time. Honestly, we are not even thinking about Series C – it will be a while (before that happens). Right now, we plan on deploying the resources that we have and focussed on expanding operations.
We are still less than 50 people, globally. In Singapore and South East Asia, we have four people, in Japan and Australia we have two people each, and then we about 25 people in Bangalore, which is our main data sciences and engineering centre.
Both Telstra and Global Brian are strong in their local markets. This was one of the reasons we went with them as strategic investors in this round, despite having two strong VC players &#8211; Sequoia and Cannan &#8211; on board.
We want to leverage the strengths of Telstra and Global Brain in those markets. Telstra is the largest operator in Australia and we are looking forward to working with them in some capacity. Japan is a very complex market – Global Brain is well entrenched in that market and they can help us with some key relationships. We have not entered China yet, and in India we work with carriers on the advertising side – they use our platform to advertise their products. We have not really explored any tie-ups on the data side yet – some conversations are ongoing, but typically they take a long time.
Why did AdNear move its HQ from India to Singapore early last year?
Singapore is a great place for us to cover multiple markets – it is a great vantage point for us to foray into Malaysia, Philippines and other markets. Also in terms of talent, it is the best place for hiring people with the regional market perspective – those who have worked in countries around this region or in multiple markets. I was the first company employee here, and joined Adnear early last year when they were in the process of moving their head office to Singapore.
How do you monetise your offerings? Explain your revenue flow? How do you know if the user has seen the ad on his/her phone?
It is per impression – there is a charge for every impression that we show to a user; 100% of our money comes from our advertisers. Whenever we run a campaign, we measure through the last step on how many people have clicked on it, how many downloaded it, or watched the video. We try to measure every single aspect and provide feedback so that the advertiser knows the RoI (return on investment).
We have been growing very fast in terms of revenues – we started generating revenues only in June-July, last year. We have grown 12x in the last one year in the user count  (530 million users across Asia). This is growing at a phenomenal pace – we are adding 1.2 million users every day. On the revenue perspective, we have more than doubling every quarter.
When you collect data and location from the mobile phones, does it lead to any privacy concerns? As consumers get more aware and educated, won’t they demand that their location or mobile internet usage not be monitored or tracked?
We have always been responsible, ensuring that no data (that borders on personally identifiable front) is stored. We track the device anonymously – we don’t have your mobile number, name or any other identifiable details.
Such questions have started coming in, and I am saying this as someone from the industry and not representing a particular company. The best way to tackle that is we try to be as transparent as possible. We try and give as much control to the user as possible. This is something similar to what companies like Google and Apple do i.e. when you reset your cookies or reset your device settings, whatever information that we have, gets erased at user level.
Looking into the future, where do you see AdNear in the next 12 months and beyond?
We are in the advertising and marketing industry, where the objective for any brand is to reach the end consumer. Predominantly, it has been through TV, but slowly it had started becoming desktop, laptop and tablet; but now it has come down to the mobile.
Unlike a TV, a mobile is not shared – it is a personal device and the amount of time people spend with mobiles, far exceeds any other device. Hence, the amount of data that it generates on the user front, is huge and it tells me so much more about the individual than a TV or a laptop would. This is the next big opportunity. This is what everyone is trying to figure out – how can I target each end-user successfully?
The amount of disruption the mobile has brought in – the amount of time people spend on it, the amount of work that can be done through your mobile phone – had fundamentally changed many businesses. This has impacted many industries – advertising, payments, hardware and marketing.
Our goal in the next 12-18 months includes, educating the client and getting them to understand what we do. Secondly, we want to use this data not just for advertisers but other stakeholders in the system like powering transactions for e-commerce.
I am hopeful that the market will grow a lot faster. What I’ve seen in the mobile space in the last four years is that the market has exceeded all predictions, whether it handset explosion, proliferation of smartphones or even e-commerce.
Who are your competitors?
In one sense, we work with advertisers – so we are competing with any digital or mobile company that works with advertisers. I think at higher level, more than competition, it come down to education. Typically, advertisers run campaigns that are based on assumptions about the user. What we are trying to do is to break that perception and get them to look at a lot of other data points.
That is where we see certain markets like Australia moving much faster, because they are more mature, and certain markets like India taking more time. Going forward, a lot of our effort &#8211; whether it is selling, evangelising or publishing research reports – will be about conveying that there much more data on hand than what they are used to.
How do you see the startup scene in Singapore and also in the region?
An ideal place for startups needs a perfect combination of investments; and people, who are willing to take risk and are early adopters. Here (in Singapore) the appetite for risk is not as high among the young people because there is always an alternate available– a very good life and a high-paying job.
Even the young people who end up taking this leap of faith, often get stuck within Singapore, which by itself, is not a big market.  One has to start looking at Indonesia, Thailand, India, Vietnam or China (as markets).
China and India have seen a lot of success stories. This is very important – when you see the success stories of Flipkart, Alibaba and other companies, you think that we, too, can do that. Now you see that happening in Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand and other markets. This is why investments are flowing into this region.
Singapore has seen a lot of commitment from investors and is an attractive proposition for entrepreneurs. Unlike other places, the opportunity cost here is very high – on an average the lifestyle and quality of life here is really good. So what you leave behind, to become an entrepreneur, is a very high quality of life &#8211; a risk that not many are willing to take.
But then there are a lot of really good accelerators and incubators here and the perceived risk has come down. There is a support system with basic facilities and mentors, which is encouraging startups.
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<pre><a href="http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/Asia_g241-Singapore_Skyline_At_Night_p108030.html">Image:Freedigitalpicures.net</a></pre>

Numbers game: Is AdNear region’s fastest growing startup?

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