B2B to C

How India's first ever unicorn, In Mobi, is transforming itself into a consumer tech company

- SURAJEET DAS GUPTA

Forty-seven-year-old Naveen Tewari has been jet-setting between the swanky India headquarters of InMobi in Bengaluru and his office in San Francisco, where he has hired a team of 200 top-notch artificial intelligence (AI) engineers with the mandate to leverage the disruptive technology to transform his company's digital business.

He is also scouting around to tie up with a global AI partner so that his company can integrate its technology with InMobi's digital platforms. That is akin to what Apple Inc has done with Microsoft recently for its devices.

The reason is simple. Tewari, co-founder and CEO of InMobi, India's first ever unicorn-a startup valued at more than $1 billion - is making a fundamental shift in his business strategy. He is now leveraging InMobi's global mobile advertising platform, which is a business-to-business, or B2B, play to transform the group into a consumer tech player by getting into a range of consumer-facing businesses such as ecommerce (though Roposo), content across segments (through Glance, which offers smart lock-screen experience), gaming (through Nostra), and weather platform 1 Weather, which is popular in the United States for offering interactive information. All these are powered by advanced regenerative AI.

"We are making a fundamental transformation in our business model from being only a B2B player in mobile advertising to a consumer tech company, but with the cornerstone of being AI-enabled, which will be the game-changer."

Pushing the pedal