Mobile search engine Taptu has won $9.6 million in extra funding from existing investors.

The Series B funding, from 3i and Sofinnova Investments, will help the Cambridge, England-based company with its growth plans. As part of this deal, Andreas Bernstrom has been named chief operating officer of Taptu.

"[The funding is] to expand the proposition and to increase the amount of searches on Taptu and to monetize that inventory," Mr. Bernstrom said.

Operating both in Britain and the United States, Taptu offers mobile entertainment search to both early adopters as well as consumers for whom the mobile device is the sole Internet connection.

The Taptu service is available directly on Web-enabled mobile phones at http://taptu.com and to mobile portals, publishers and social networks through its customizable search engine APIs.

Per the service, partners can also use Taptu's mobile search engine to help their users search on-portal content or the mobile Internet.

In addition, Taptu offers its partners new revenue sources from mobile search through sponsored links advertising.

An estimated 1 million searches per month are conducted on Taptu.

"We need to grow that in the U.K., United States, France, Germany, Italy and Spain," Mr. Bernstrom said.

The privately held Taptu was founded last year. It is accessible in English, French, German, Spanish and Italian.

The new funding is designed to help Taptu benefit from an expected surge in the use of the mobile Web. Improved carrier networks and better smartphones also help.

According to Gartner, mobile data revenue overtook voice revenues for the first time this year.

Also, Gartner expects that mobile search will become a $12 billion market worldwide by 2013.

"The growth in search proliferation over the last six months has been enormous," Mr. Bernstrom said.

Mr. Bernstrom cited Google numbers from earlier this year that claimed that iPhone users searched 50 times more than regular handset users.

"If we're looking at the extrapolated model, the potential for mobile is huge, whereby a third or half of all mobile advertising is going to be search, which will mirror the desktop world," Mr. Bernstrom said.

The arrival of Mr. Bernstrom is expected to help Taptu expand globally and find more customers for its mobile search engine.

Mr. Bernstrom was previously chief operating officer at Internet marketing firm TradeDoubler. Prior to that, he worked at Goldman, Sachs & Co. and Merrill Lynch.

Taptu currently uses platforms of such companies as AdMob, Nokia and Yahoo. Mr. Bernstrom aims to help Taptu get more self-reliant.

"We should have a search and banner ad network to sell directly to advertisers sometime in Q2," Mr. Bernstrom said.