AdMob alums launch mobile advertising startup MoPub

Mobile advertising startup MoPub announced the close of a seed round led by venture firms Accel Partners and Harrison Metal Capital; the total of the financing was not disclosed. MoPub CEO Jim Payne previously teamed with co-founders Bryan Atwood and Nafis Jamal at AdMob, the mobile advertising network acquired by Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) for $750 million--MoPub touts an ad serving platform for mobile applications and websites, describing itself as "analogous to DoubleClick for publishers." The MoPub site--still in private beta--is a product of the AngelPad startup mentorship program; the ex-Googler incubator also participated in the funding round.

The U.S. mobile advertising market more than doubled over the past year to $877 million, research firm IDC states, adding that Google is on pace to control 59 percent of the market by the end of 2010. A year ago, prior to the AdMob deal, Google represented 48.6 percent of the U.S. mobile ad market (including search and display ads), IDC notes; Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), which in January 2010 acquired mobile ad network Quattro Wireless for $275 million and introduced its iAd platform in July, will finish the year controlling 8.4 percent of the market, the firm adds.

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