POKKT Appoints Abdul Wahab as Vice President, Global Delivery Head

POKKT, India’s & SEA’s leading smartphone advertising platform for mobile games has announced the appointment of Abdul Wahab as Vice President, Global Delivery Head. Abdul will be responsible for timely delivery of campaigns, optimizing cost, maintain KPIs towards the goals targeted, strengthening and exploring new partnerships with mobile game publishers. Abdul will report to POKKT’s COO & CO-founder, Vaibhav Odhekar.

“We are delighted to have Abdul on board as our Global delivery head. I have known Abdul personally for the last 5 years and his vast experience in digital advertising operations, delivery and optimization will help the company scale newer heights. He will surely help us reinforce our leadership team and will strengthen POKKT’s position in the mobile video advertising space,” said Vaibhav Odhekar, COO & CO-founder of POKKT.

On taking up his new role, Abdul said, “I’m excited to join POKKT and looking forward to ramping up the programmatic arm of the company. My overall endeavour will be to establish POKKT as a global leader in mobile video ad space. Having worked in a start-up environment and with tech-based companies, I will also be looking at establishing strong relationships with our clients and partners, both existing and new.”

Abdul brings 13+ years of relevant industry experience to his new role having previously served as Senior Director-Supply and Delivery at C1 Exchange. He was handling the entire business operations from onboarding supply and programmatic delivery, for the US and APMEA region. He has also worked in leadership roles with several top companies like Vizury, Vserv, Ibibo and Zenith Optimedia. He has a complete understanding of the online advertising marketplace and has been a significant contributor to both business and technical aspects of ad Serving. His key accomplishments include delivering scale and value to the stakeholders.

Pocket Money, Pokkt's Reward Based App, Gets Acquired by Japanese Mobile Marketing Firm Adways Inc

POKKT, India and South East Asia’s leading rewarded video advertising platform today announced that their incentivized Android app, Pocket Money, has been acquired by Adways Inc, Japan and South East Asia’s leading mobile marketing company. The landmark acquisition follows the launch of the Adways Indian subsidiary - Adways Innovations India Pvt Ltd with Yu Ishida as their Country Manager.

Currently installed by over 6 million users in India, Pocket Money is a reward-based ad platform, which helps app developers to acquire and engage customers in a targeted way. It brings together a colossal rewards-for-engagement platform with the best in-line offers and value exchange in return for a multitude of redemption options. Pocket Money banks on its state of the art a serving platform, steadfast attribution tie-ups, big data and analytics infrastructures to not just ensure a high rate of successful transactions, but also thrives on the grounds of bringing direct and qualitative success to it’s advertisers.

Rohit Sharma, Founder & CEO, POKKT said, “Pocket Money today is amongst the top 5 Apps in the category with huge traction. We have built Pocket Money as a successful and profitable business in less than 18 months. However we want to focus on our core business “POKKT Video Ads”, which is the leading Mobile Video Ad Platform for Games in India & SEA. Adways is a large Global performance Ad Company and the right partner to scale the Pocket Money Business significantly in India.”

Speaking about the acquisition and the establishment of Adways India, Yu Ishida, Country Manager, Adways India, “India is one of the largest smart phone using markets in the world. With more number of smart phone owners, the advertising is also moving from passive attention seeking to engagement driven exercise. Pocket Money is one of India’s leading incentivizing app.  We are excited to enter the country with such a dynamic and young team as Pocket Money. Launching Adways India and acquiring Pocket Money is another step towards consolidating our foothold in the Asian market.”

The latest Adways acquisition and launch of their Indian subsidiary follows India’s incredible growth potential to accelerate the adoption of mobile business. According to a report by Counterpoint Research, India has become the second-largest smartphone market in terms of active unique smartphone users with 220 million users, surpassing the US market, followed by China and expected to reach 700 million by 2020*. Mobile advertising market has also grown by 200% every year since 2013 in proportion to the growth of smartphone penetration.

Adways Innovation India will be committed to help domestic and overseas app developers and publishers expand their business in the best way possible by developing its own media platform and enhancing advertising agency business. Adways Inc is a listed company in Japan.

Image Source: ShutterStock

Mumbai-based Pokkt Raises $5 Mn In Fresh Round of Funding

Mumbai-based Maiden Marketing Pte Ltd, which owns and operates mobile video advertising start-up Pokkt, on Tuesday said it has raised close to $5 million from existing and new investors in a fresh round of funding from Singapore-based venture capital firm Segnel Venture Pte Ltd and angel investors Shinji Kimura and Sundar Chanrai.

The company had previously raised $2.5 million in Series A from JAFCO Asia, SingTel Innov8, Jungle Ventures and K Ganesh.

Founded in 2012 by industry veterans Rohit Sharma, Vaibhav Odhekar and Manish Tewari, POKKT, pronounced as 'pocket', is an alternate mobile payment platform that helps owners of paid digital goods (music, games, videos, software, Mobile recharge etc.) and services to monetise their users through an advertiser-funded model.

The company was funded by Bengaluru-based GSF Accelerator in the initial days and has raised close to $3 million, till now, in multiple rounds. It plans to use the fresh funds in enhancing technology besides strengthening the team to grow sales and revenue.

Currently, the startup is helping gaming App Publishers in India & south-east Asia monetize through in-app rewarded video ads.

Pokkt is incorporated in Singapore and has offices in Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Bangkok, Singapore and Jakarta with an overall team of 70 people. It also plans to open offices in Philippines and Malaysia, doubling its overall headcount in the next one year.