Update: CEO Paul Palmieri outlines the news on his blog here.

On the heals of the recent Google acquisition of AdMob, the market leader in mobile advertising Millennial Media has announced that it has closed on a $16M Series C round of growth funding, led by New Enterprise Associates (NEA) with existing investors Bessemer Venture Partners, Columbia Capital, and Charles River Ventures participating.  Millennial has raised a total of $37 million to date.

Millennial Media has achieved a reach to 79 percent of the mobile market thanks to its expansion into the European market over the past two years thanks to its increased presence in London. “Millennial Media has achieved a commanding lead in the mobile advertising category over the largest internet and mobile incumbents,” said Patrick Kerins, General Partner, NEA. “Millennial is the crown jewel of the market, has the capital, talent and technology to continue to win in the marketplace and is poised to aggressively take share both in the U.S. and beyond.”

This new deal will also see Mr. Kerins added to the Board of Directors for Millennial Media.

As to what the company plans to do with this new funding, there is a multi-faceted plan of where the funds will be spent:

• Scale past the profitability point to capture the enormous growth of the mobile display advertising business
• Global acceleration, particularly supporting the company’s 2+ year successful efforts in Europe by expanding our London presence
• Attract world class talent in the engineering and sales organizations
• Market deployments of major developer monetization programs on behalf of Handset, OS, and service providers
• From media planning tools to audiences, the company is scaling the technologies, data and insights to bring the full potential of mobile to advertisers

With all of the success Millennial Media has been enjoying, one has to wonder why the company chose to seek funding at all.  Paul Palmieri, President and CEO of the company, said, “Today, Millennial Media reaches more U.S. consumers on mobile devices than any media company large or small.  We chose to raise this round of growth capital to continue to drive the growth of the overall market and expand our substantial leadership position in it by focusing on the needs of advertisers.”

A sum like $16 million certainly isn’t chump change, and it sure seems like enough to achieve all of the goals the company has set for itself.

[Editor’s Note and Disclosure: Millennial Media is a sponsor of SiliconANGLE. –spa]