Mobile ad network Quattro Wireless has raised an additional $10 million in Series C funding -- for a total of $28 million -- to accelerate international growth and continue developing predictive mobile targeting technology.

The round was led by Highland Capital Partners and Globespan Capital Partners. Quattro's clients include Fortune 500 companies such as Microsoft, Sony, General Mills and Kmart.

"We've really grown dramatically since the start of 2008 -- we went from a premium in-market network with super-premium sites with a decent-sized audience base to a pretty big premium site network with a lot of impressions, a lot of advertisers and a lot of scale," said Andrew Miller, CEO of Quattro Wireless, Waltham, MA.

"We're going to use our money in a few ways, including an international roll-out including the development of relationships in different countries that we've targeted for advertisers, focusing on Britain, Western Europe, South Africa and Australia," he said.

"We'll also invest significant resources toward upgrading our privacy-sensitive targeting technology to help make ad-serving decisions."

Despite the unprecedented economic climate, Quattro continues to grow, Mr. Miller claims. Its goal is to provide its mobile-advertising partners with reach, targeting and positive ROI.

"At first we thought this recession was going to be not good for everyone, including mobile, since mobile is often an experimental budget, it would be the first to go," Mr. Miller said. "However, I really do think that 2009 is going to be the year of mobile advertising, and I think the recession's going to be a big part of it.

"We've made great strides integrating into the buy-side infrastructure, we've made it easy for media buyers to get into mobile, and in this economy, mobile is performing better than online is," he said. "We're seeing repeat buys, new money moving over to mobile from digital budgets and mobile campaigns are seeing great click-through rates, engagement and conversions.

"There's a lot of premium mobile inventory out there, and Quattro's done so well because we have strong publishers with in-market inventory, we integrate into agencies' buy side, we track it all the way through and we're seeing more and more advertisers take the plunge into mobile."

The $10 million investment comes on the heels of Quattro's January international announcement, rolling out its premium-publisher mobile ad network.

In two months, the Quattro Network has grown by hundreds of internationally focused mobile Web and application publishers in 15 new country markets.

The Quattro Network now serves billions of brand and direct-response impressions a month worldwide, it is claimed.

Satirical publishing company The Onion, "America's Finest News Source," recently launched an ad-supported mobile site and selected Quattro for a mobile advertising and publishing partnership (see story).

In 2008, Quattro captured a large portion of the market behind Internet publishers like the NFL, Univision, Hachette Filipacchi (see story) and the CBS family of sites.

According to Quattro, impressions grew 30 times in multiple from January to December 2008, with approximately 1,000 new brand and direct-response advertiser campaigns running across the network.

Quattro claims that its network now gets 25 million unique monthly visitors.

Quattro's business approach helps leading publishers monetize their content in various mobile channels -- the Web, SMS, video and applications -- and on any platform -- including Apple's iPhone, Research In Motion's BlackBerry, Google's Android and Nokia's Symbian.

This year will see the full-network roll-out of Quattro's predictive mobile targeting technology, which will enable advertisers to target and reach granular consumer demographics.

Brands in various sectors are investing in mobile advertising campaigns, including automotive companies and consumer packaged goods giants like Procter & Gamble and Unilever.

"This past Christmas season was strong on the electronics side, with advertising on CNET and other sites showing a strong focus on different electronics products, and movie studios have also done well, with plenty of buys from a variety of studios using mobile to promote their movies," Mr. Miller said. "Bank of America is driving traffic to its branded iPhone app, and we've seen mobile commerce plays from pizza, hotel and travel companies, where you can book or buy using a mobile phone.

"The fastest-growing target segment is women," he said. "New advertisers are coming into the space to drive traffic to mobile marketplaces.

"We've spent a lot of time developing STKs for the iPhone, Android and other platforms, and we're seeing new services and products come into marketplace that have a mobile component."

Mr. Miller has an optimistic outlook, despite the recession.

"The economy will get better and mobile will be a strong place to use your dollars to attract a new audience," Mr. Miller said. "Consumers have different behaviors on mobile, and the results on mobile are strong. Folks who've done mobile campaigns have had a great experience.

"The growth of this space, even in a tough market, reflects that," he said. "We've done a good job to make the mobile ad buying process easier and more accountable, affordable and attractive to advertisers," he said.