Mobile ad company Millennial Media files for $75M IPO

No. 2 in mobile display ads behind Google tees up to greet public investors

Millennial Media, which has raised more than $65 million in venture funding and acquired three companies in the last three years, is filing to go public, and raise $75 million. The Baltimore-based company didn't specify the number of shares or price it will be offering to the public, in its filing revealing its public offering intentions.

The mobile-advertising company, which hired Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs Group, and Barclay to take them public, grew revenue 138% to $69.1 million in revenue during the nine months ending September 2011. Net lossed narrowed to $417,000 from a loss of $5.4 million during the same period.

Millennial is benefiting from the growth of mobile devices, mobile activity and the desire from marketers to target users on mobile phones. While Google is the leader in mobile display-advertising, with nearly a quarter of the market share, Millenial ranks No. 2, with nearly 17% of share, and Apple is No. 3 with 15%, according to IDC.

In December 2011, Millennial's platform reached 200 million unique users globally, with half of those coming from the U.S., according to the filing. Around 40 billion ad impressions were processed in that month as well. 

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. 

And, the mobile app market is just exploding. Gartner, forecasts that 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.   

Millneial was not immediately available for comment.

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