Medialets, an analytics and ad technology platform for next-generation mobile applications, has closed a $4 million Series A financing round led by investor Foundry Group, with participation from DFJ Gotham and strategic investor Bobby Yazdani, an early investor in Google.

Medialets launched on July 11, 2008, the same day as Apple's App Store. Medialets is a rich-media advertising and analytics platform for mobile applications built for Apple's iPhone and Google's Android, with support for RIM's BlackBerry, Microsoft's Windows Mobile, Nokia's Symbian and Palm Pre devices coming later this year.

"We couldn't possibly be happier that this is happening now," said Eric Litman, chairman/CEO of Medialets, New York. "It's been a great year for us and this funding is a great opportunity for us to take it to the next level.

"This is an opportunity to significantly enhance our platform and continue to provide developers with tools to give them a competitive edge in this market," he said.

"Our mission is fairly simple: number one, to be the standard for rich-media ad units and technology in and around mobile, and to make whole process of ad-buying, planning and forecasting easier for everyone in the mobile ecosystem."

There have been over a billion iPhone app downloads to date. More than 40,000 different apps have been delivered through Apple's App Store.

Consumers download an average of 27 apps to their iPhone, and spend anywhere from 3.5 to 7.5 minutes per session, although games are averaging longer sessions.

"On ad side, there has been very healthy growth this year," Mr. Litman said. "Mobile ad spending is up from where it was last year -- it will be somewhere in the 30 to 40 percent growth range from last year.

"It's interesting that the growth rate is slowing in mobile Web display ads and increasing in mobile application display ads," he said.

Based in Boulder, CO, Foundry Group is a venture capital firm focused on investing in early-stage information technology, Internet, and software startups.

In addition to providing the necessary venture capital to get a company up and running, Foundry Group is committed to leveraging their experience in starting and growing companies, expertise in the technology industry and network of relationships to help entrepreneurs.

DFJ Gotham Ventures is a venture capital firm focused on early-stage technology companies primarily in the Greater New York Region and other parts of the Eastern Seaboard.

Since its first investment in 2000, DFJ Gotham Ventures has backed more than 20 companies spanning a wide array of technology sectors.

DFJ Gotham Ventures partners with extraordinary teams of entrepreneurs to build strong and successful businesses that make a huge impact in their industries.

DFJ Gotham Ventures takes pride in being an active partner, leveraging its experience, knowledge and relationships to provide substantial value to its portfolio companies.

DFJ Gotham Ventures has backed such companies as Massive (acquired by MSFT), XOsoft (acquired by CA), Q-Link (acquired by Adobe), Mimeo.com and ContextWeb.

Bobby Yazdani is the founder and CEO of Saba, a global provider of strategic human capital management.

Prior to founding Saba, Mr. Yazdani held various senior R&D management positions at Oracle Corp.

He has successfully mentored and invested in many early stage start-ups, including Clearspring, Dropbox, Google, HotPrints, Salesforce.com, Social Gaming Network, Webs.com and Masimo.

Medialets works with agencies and brands to define and deploy innovative ad campaigns that tap into all of the capabilities of the iPhone.

Medialets' Medialytics is an analytics, reporting and advertising solution for the world's most downloaded iPhone applications.

Medialets' customers include Paramount, FedEx, Dockers, MasterCard, MTV, Tribune Media, Social Gaming Network and Omnicom Group.

Medialets develops technologies that enable publishers to measure their audience and monetize their applications through advertising and allow brands to leverage all of the capabilities unique to these devices into advertisements in a completely measurable environment, whether a user is on- or offline.

Medialets' software has been installed more than 60 million times across 15 million-plus unique devices to date. It measures usage in many of the top 20 highest downloaded applications on the iPhone platform based upon data released by Apple in April.

On the measurement side, Medialets primarily works with large developers and media publishers who look to the company's analytics product, Medialytics, as a business intelligence tool to help them make informed decisions around improving app strategy and performance.

Medialets does not collect any personally identifiable information from users. The data gathered from the analytics product is anonymized and applied to improve the advertising experience and targeting capabilities for advertisers.

The Medialets ad platform solves a core set of challenges successful publishers and developers face when deploying a mobile application.

Medialets' ad technology makes it possible to target and serve rich-media ads to millions of smartphone users worldwide immediately, whether those ads are sold in-house or come from a third party.

The company's unique ad formats let brands and agencies create engaging ads that deliver the power of a branded application with the immediate distribution of an ad.

Publishers add Medialets' analytics code to their application and Medialets provides the infrastructure on the server side for aggregating and reporting on usage, as well as for reliably delivering ads into enabled applications.

The rich media ads can include video, animation, sound and other advanced functionality.

"Medialets entered the market at the inception of the new generation of the mobile application space, and we are proud to have been able to help foster and grow the market by providing tools and support to the developer community," Mr. Litman said. "Over the past year, Medialets has become the trusted partner to over 1,000 leading developers.

"Through this investment, we'll focus on significantly enhancing the platform they use to gain a competitive edge and continue to win market share," he said.

"We've accomplished a great deal in a short period of time, and are thrilled to now bring in partners who are just as passionate about the business as we are to help us grow to the next level."