Advertising technology startup MOLOCO Inc. today said that it has closed a $150 million funding round led by Tiger Global at a $1.5 billion valuation.

The Redwood City, California-based startup disclosed on the occasion that it’s generating annual recurring revenues of more than $100 million. MOLOCO added that its top line has been “consistently” growing by 100% or more every year.

MOLOCO provides what’s known in the digital advertising industry as a demand-side platform. It allows enterprises to buy ad space in mobile apps to display promotions for those apps’ users. MOLOCO uses machine learning models to help companies increase the amount of revenue that their mobile marketing campaigns generate and reduce advertising costs. 

Mobile ad space is sold through online auctions where brands bid for opportunities to reach users with their promotions. The bidding process is often carried out automatically by algorithms. MOLOCO’s machine learning models work by analyzing a company’s past mobile marketing campaigns to determine what types of ad space provided the biggest return on investment. The platform then purchases similar ad space via online auctions to help the company increase the effectiveness of its in-app promotions.

After analyzing the past marketing campaigns of an online retailer, MOLOCO may determine that the retailer’s ads are most effective when they’re placed in e-commerce apps. Based on this information, the startup’s machine learning models could start bidding for ad space in e-commerce apps. According to MOLOCO, its platform can not only boost sales but also help companies optimize marketing costs by helping them direct spending away from low-efficiency ad space.

“Until now, only the world’s largest technology companies have benefited from the power of exceptional machine learning,” said MOLOCO co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Ikkjin Ahn. “Our goal is to make machine learning models accessible to more businesses so that they can leverage their first-party customer data for better user acquisition, customer engagement, monetization and growth.”

One of the key factors that helped the startup turn its platform into a $100 million revenue run rate business is the versatility of its machine learning algorithms. Many of the AI models used for ad bidding are only trained to optimize ad campaigns in one specific market segment. MOLOCO, in contrast, says its AI infrastructure can manage campaigns across multiple industries. 

“Our deep learning neural network models and data infrastructure were designed from day one to be flexible enough to ingest any type of commercial data and make exceptionally accurate predictions,” Ahn said. “Our growth and performance in diversified industries demonstrates the depth and flexibility of our machine learning platform.”

The startup says that it delivers more than 13 billion ad impressions every month through 5.58 million apps. MOLOCO’s platform performs about 2 billion deep learning query operations per second to find optimal advertising opportunities for brands. 

With the capital from the funding round announced today, the startup will grow its investments in product and engineering operations, as well as expand into more markets. MOLOCO has raised a total of $200 million from investors since launching in 2013. 

Image: MOLOCO