Mojiva Inc. recently raised $25 million to help build out its mobile advertising network and ad serving platform while addressing the growing interest in mobile from agencies and brands.

The funding was led by Shamrock Capital Advisors, an investment firm focused on the media, entertainment and communications sectors. Mojiva will use the funding to help it build its presence internationally and put a bigger focus on the mobile advertising markets in the U.S. and European markets where it is already established.

?This gives us the ability to step back and say, ?What is the business here??? said Dave Gwozdz, CEO of Mojiva Inc., New York. ?We?re not for small publishers ? we?re being considered by some of the biggest publishers in the world.?

Mobile interest grows
In addition to the funding, Shamrock Capital?s experience in the media space will help Mojiva as it looks to address the growing interest in mobile from brands and advertisers.

?All of a sudden creative groups at agencies are looking for ways to get into mobile,? Mr. Gwozdz said
?We are finding that there is tremendous demand for more effective ad units and creative,? he said.

The funding will help Mojiva put the support in place that it needs to address the growth in mobile advertising.

?We?ll be expanding in certain areas,? Mr. Gwozdz said. ?I don?t see any real change in the structure in the United States but we?ll go deeper in terms of the technology. 

?We?ll look to put a technology support group in place in our offices in Boston and San Francisco for the big wins that are ramping up in the next few months and which we haven?t announced yet,,? he said.

The Mojiva mobile advertising network represents 3,000 mobile Web publishers and apps. It reaches more than 100 million monthly unique users in the U.S. and 400 million monthly unique users globally.

The Mocean Mobile ad serving platform serves display ads to all mobile devices including smart phones, tablets and netbooks. The platform currently powers more than a dozen mobile ad networks and dozens of top media partners? mobile properties, including MSNBC and Intel.

Other investors include Mojiva?s previous investors Pelion Venture Partners and Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments.

The mobile advertising space is competitive, with leading offerings like Apple?s iAd and Google?s AdMob as well as a handful of other solutions from Millennial Media, Jumptap, inMobi and Mojiva looking to sign up the new advertisers coming into this space.

?You have big players in Google and Apple,? said Neil Strother, Kirkland, WA-based practice director at ABI Research. ?All the others are jockeying for first-tier status.

?Essentially, this round of funding keeps Mojiva in the game,? he said. ?What it means is they can move ahead and invest in areas where they need to.?

The question is can Mojiva scale up and be competitive in mobile advertising? Some of the challenges that Mojiva and other mobile advertising firms face is how to win business that competitors are after and how to offer even better targeting and reach.

?This is a time when there is a lot of room for players to get in and compete,? Mr. Strother said. ?People are recognizing more and more that there is an audience in mobile that you can engage with.?