Marketing Platform Player InMobi To Acquire Sprint's Mobile Advertising Business

InMobi, a marketing platform provider, said Wednesday it plans to buy Pinsight Media from wireless giant Sprint to offer enterprises deeper insight into their data to better reach customers.

The acquisition comes in the midst of Sprint's latest attempt to merge with carrier competitor T-Mobile in a deal valued at $26 billion in which T-Mobile would be the parent company. Sprint is currently carrying more than $40 billion in debt.

InMobi and Pinsight Media will come together in an all-stock deal; financial terms have not been disclosed.

[Related: 5 Things Solution Providers Need To Know About T-Mobile And Sprint's Merger Plans]

InMobi provides a mobile marketing and advertising platform for enterprise customers. Pinsight Media, meanwhile, offers insight into mobile data through its portfolio of services. The company works with some of the leading U.S.-based telecom providers and advertisers across multiple verticals, such as consumer goods, retail, entertainment and finance, according to the two companies.

The Pinsight Media acquisition will bring better insight through its data management platform to the InMobi Marketing Cloud. Combined, enterprise marketers can uncover new audiences and opportunities, and build an artificial intelligence-powered marketing strategy, InMobi said of the deal.

"With this acquisition we are creating the most powerful advertising and marketing platform for the U.S. market by unifying online and offline behavior and providing CMOs with a way to reach and engage them,” said Naveen Tewari, founder and CEO of InMobi, in a statement. “This … acquisition allows InMobi and Sprint to work on our respective strengths together and provides a global template for partnerships between advertising platforms and telcos.”

Via the terms of the deal, InMobi will expand its North American operations in Kansas City, close to Sprint's home in Overland Park, Kan. The company will also expand into several new cities, including San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.

InMobi in January acquired AerServ, a free mobile mediation and revenue management platform, for $90 million. The company also unveiled a formal partnership with Microsoft in June.

In March, Pinsight Media's CEO and managing executive of the Sprint Accelerator program, Kevin McGinnis, stepped down. Sprint Accelerator, a program founded in 2013, was created to help connect startups to mentors, corporations and other resources to help them grow.