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Mobile advertising unicorn InMobi has set up an office in Dubai as it prepares for the next chapter of its growth.

The development comes at a time when Dubai is diversifying its offering, aiming to become a tech hub for multiple sectors including cryptocurrency.

The Bengaluru-based unicorn has a team of 20-30 people working out of the United Arab Emirates’ most populous city.

“As of now it is a small team. But we aim to make this office a hub for expansion into Africa, Europe and the Middle East,” Naveen Tewari, chief executive officer (CEO), InMobi, told YourStory at TiECON Mumbai 2022 event on Friday.

According to Naveen, the expansion plans came into existence when InMobi’s team met with delegates from Dubai during a company off-site sometime last year.

InMobi was founded as mKhoj in 2007 by Naveen, Amit K Gupta, who now runs last-mile mobility firm Yulu, Abhay Singhal, and Mohit Saxena. The SoftBank-backed mobile advertising player had to reinvent itself twice to find its current form.

The firm acquired Singapore-based Glance, a mobile lock screen advertiser, and Roposo, a Gurugram-based short-video app, in 2019, and social commerce player Shop101 in June last year.

Backed by Japan’s Softbank and Lightbox, a Mumbai-based venture capital firm, InMobi’s Glance is present on more than 100 million smartphones.