Millennial Media ups share price range to $11 to $13

Second only to Google, Millennial Media bumps its IPO price range as mobile advertising strengthens

Millennial Media, a mobile advertising platform, raised the expected price range for its initial public offer to between $11 and $13 a share.

The Bessemer Venture Partners and Columbia Capital backed company, originally set forth a price of between $9 and $11 for each of the 10.2 million shares set of the IPO.

In a regulatory filing updated Tuesday morning, the company said it planned to raise approximately $152.5 million in the IPO, up from the $129 million mentioned in the first S-1 filing.

The Baltimore-based company (set to trade on the NYSE under the symbol MM) stated that it hopes to use the proceeds of the IPO partly for product development and also to expand its global operations.

Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and Barclays Capital are acting as lead underwriters for the upcoming offering that was originally filed for on January 6. 

Millennial is currently one of the largest remaining independent mobile ad networks and serves ads to 200 million unique users worldwide, including approximately 100 million unique users in the United States. The company is currently only second to Google (which holds a whopping 71%) in the mobile ad platform sector.

From 2009 to 2010, Millennial’s revenue increased nearly two-fold from $16.2 million to $47.8 million, but the company also took in a net loss of $7.6 million, and $7.1 million, respectively in those years. 

The company also grew its revenue 138% to $69.1 million in revenue during the nine months ending September 2011 and the net loss narrowed to $417,000 from a loss of $5.4 million during the same period the previous year.

More than 28,000 apps have Millennial ads integrated and more than 7,000 different mobile device types and models can take the ads. The system is compatible with all major operating systems, incuding Apple iOS, Android, Windows Phone, Blackberry and Symbian. 

This increase IPO price range could be in response to a more positive trend in the public markets or could be in response to the grwoing interest in more mobile marketing opportunities and focus, but either way it spells confidence from the Millennial team as it inches closer to IPO time.

Millennial has been competing for the same advertising clients and developer inventory providers as the countless other advertising companies but has been able to secure around 16.7% of the market, according to market research firm IDC.

And, the mobile app market is just exploding. Forecasts place the total number of downloads from mobile application stores worldwide will increase from 17.7 billion in 2011 to 108.8 billion in 2015, representing a compound annual growth rate of 57%. 

Millennial, which started operating in 2006, is backed by Bessemer Venture Partners, New Enterprise Associates, Charles River Ventures and Columbia Capital.