Who is the biggest winner in AdMob acquisition?

Today Omar Hamoui, Founder & CEO of Admob, announced the news that Google has agreed to acquire AdMob for USD$750 million.

The biggest winner and the real hero, in my point of view, is Michael Dearing,  the Angel investor who invested USD$4 million at the time when AdMob was merely a  mobile vision.

Constraints, Vision & Persistence

I’ve watching AdMob since its early start – at a time when the data charges were absurdly high;  People got ‘bill shock’, as they didn’t realize the  data charges were calculated by ‘bytes’ and would easily cost a fortune just by accidentally pressing the ‘browse’ button.   But this was also a time when most people could agree that mobile phones, would become more and more important in everyone’s lives.    Thanks to the financial resources available, AdMob is able to make it through the rough time, and emerge as the leader when the right time comes.

Early Stage investment

AdMob total funding (4 rounds total) was USD$47.2 million, so in 4 years,  it’s created a return of approximately 1588% for its investors, including AdMob’s first investor, Michael Dearing.

Sure enough there would be some dilution after a round of  Series B & 2 rounds of Series C funding; but the key point is that the business Mr. Dearing has invested in, become stronger & more competitive with the new partners.  AdMob not only attained more financial resources, but also directly connected into the brains & business networks of the top tier VC community – Sequoia, DFJ etc. , the invisible assets that eventually lead to the Google acquisition.