AdMob has secured a new $15.7 million Series C investment round, led by Sequoia Capital's Growth Fund with existing investor Accel Partners participating.

The ad network will use these funds to expand its global leadership position. The company will make significant strategic investments to increase its lead in mobile advertising.

"AdMob is in a good position at the confluence of two industries that are continuing to grow -- mobile and interactive advertising," said Nicole Leverich, director of corporate communications at AdMob, San Mateo, CA. "In difficult economic times advertisers shift budget to media that is measurable.

"Since mobile is one of the most measurable forms of media today we believe that AdMob will benefit from that shift," she said. "Mobile advertising is performing well and delivering measurable results for both direct response and brand advertisers."

AdMob will accelerate the growth of worldwide operations by hiring local staff in key markets and adding new language interfaces, in Western Europe, India, South Africa and Japan.

The ad network will also deepen the investment in its mobile technology platform, including its targeting, optimization and ad serving algorithm.

Additionally it will also expand its offerings for both publishers and advertisers.

AdMob also announced its publisher network now includes more than 6,000 partners worldwide giving it an unmatched scale.

New publishers in 2008 include MySpace and MovieTickets.com.

"AdMob is in a unique position in that the company has a strong business model, is well capitalized and cash flow positive," Ms. Leverich said. "For AdMob the difficult economic climate presents an opportunity to aggressively capture market share and this new round of funding gives us the ability to do that."

AdMob also continues to see a steep increase in the number of brand and performance advertisers running campaigns on its network, with especially strong demand for iPhone inventory.

In September 2008, AdMob ran more than 25 campaigns for brand advertisers including CoverGirl, Toshiba and Comedy Central.

AdMob claims to be the world's largest and highest quality mobile advertising marketplace, claiming to serve more than 4.5 billion mobile banner and text ads per month.

Sequoia Capital is a venture capital firm that provides start-up funding for seed stage, early stage and growth companies.

"We are using this funding to make significant strategic investments including deepening the investment in our mobile technology platform and accelerating the growth of our worldwide operations by hiring local staff in key markets," Ms. Leverich said.

"We will also be adding new language interfaces, and increasing leadership position in the U.S. by growing our sales and business development teams," she said.