Local mobile advertising network xAD has raised $4 million in new funding from Emergence Capital Partners. While the company is already profitable, xAD is going to be using the new funding expand and its technology platform more quickly.
xAD offers a local mobile search and advertising network in the U.S. The company’s patented mobile optimization technology identifies who, what, and where an end user is, and serves the most relevant click, call and check in based advertising.
The platform is currently serving 200 million local search ad requests per month and partners with large mobile ad networks like Millennial Media to provide local ad inventory. The ads themselves are more informative, giving users a full description of the business along with images, offers, reviews, maps, and driving directions.
For example, on the White Pages iPhone and Android apps, xAD will serve an ad for a local restaurant when a user searches for a restaurant within the app. The startup promises to return relevant ad results 80% of the time.
Of course, xAD faces competition in local mobile ads from Google. But with the U.S. local mobile advertising market expected to exceed $2 billion by 2014, there’s plenty of room for a number of players.