Partners For Growth commits $15m to Yello Mobile's marketing unit

YDM wants to become the Asia market leader in digital marketing with services covering marketing strategy, content creation, consumer targeting and ad efficiency, and executing digital campaigns. To this end, it has embarked on an aggressive acquisition strategy, accumulating 18 affiliates - across seven countries - with more than 1,400 employees and over 5,000 clients.

YDM family companies include marketing agencies such as Adyim in Thailand, Adplus in Indonesia and Cleverads in Vietnam, as well as Korea-based creative agencies like Dbroscreative, Handstudio and E-Motion, and big data analytics businesses such as Computerlogy in Thailand and Recobell in Korea. The new funding will be used to purchase additional shares in these affiliates and consolidate control within the group.

According to AVCJ Research, YDM previously received KRW24.1 billion ($23.4 million) in 2014 from LB Investment, DSC Investment, Mirae Asset Venture Investment, DS Investment Management, and Meritz Securities.

Parent company Yello Mobile has been equally acquisitive in seeking to expand from its home market into Southeast Asia. The business has emerged as a dominant player in five verticals domestically - e-commerce, digital entertainment, online marketing, data analytics, and online-to-offline (O2O) services - and it wants to position itself similarly in other markets where mobile infrastructure is in its infancy.

Yello Mobile received several small rounds of funding from the likes of LB, DSC and Stonebridge Capital before Formation 8 invested $100 million in 2014 at a valuation of more than $1 billion. The venture capital firm - which will not raise a new fund after the founders agreed to go their separate ways, with Brian Koo launching Asia-focused Formation Group - re-upped last year. It led a $47.2 million investment structured as convertible debt, giving Yello Mobile a valuation of around $4 billion.

That contribution was part of a broader funding round, which saw Japanese internet finance group SBI Holdings commit $30 million to the company in February of this year. The capital was earmarked for continued investments in Yello Mobile's mobile media and platform businesses.

PFG was established in 2004 by members of Hambrecht & Quist's venture lending business, with support from Silicon Valley Bank (SVB). It primarily focuses on venture capital funding for late-stage technology and life sciences companies, offering growth capital lines of credit, term loans, and convertible debt loans. PFG is currently investing its fourth fund, in which SVB Financial is an LP. The firm provides incremental debt solutions to many of the bank's clients.

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• Topics
• North Asia
• Early-stage
• Southeast Asia
• Technology
• Media
• South Korea
• TMT
• Venture
• SVB