A Look At 4INFO, The King Of SMS

When Google bought mobile ad network AdMob for $750 million in November 2009, 4IFNO CEO Zaw Thet said that he received a couple of phone calls from investment bankers and potential buyers who where were sniffing around the space. When Apple bought Quattro Wireless for $275 million two months later, he says his phone started to ring off the hook. Why? Because 4INFO is usually described as the AdMob of SMS advertising. That isn't a very good description of the company, but it's enough to make everyone think that the company is next in line to close a big acquisition. And that last part just may be true. The company, which has raised around $40 million in venture capital, is where companies go when they want to create a "mailing list" of SMS subscribers. For example - when Zynga began testing SMS notifications in December, they turned to 4INFO to power the product. 4INFO has 250 premier publishers, plus a couple of thousand more that use its self service platform.