BuzzCity

About BuzzCity

Established in 1999, BuzzCity emerged as a global mobile advertising network headquartered in Singapore. The company was founded by Dr. Lai Kok Fung (KF Lai), Clifford Chew, and Lee Cjin Pheow. Dr. Lai, who served as CEO, brought a background in applied research, specializing in pattern recognition and text retrieval, which informed the company's technological direction. He holds a Doctorate in Electrical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a First Class Honours degree in the same field from the National University of Singapore.

BuzzCity's business model centered on connecting brand owners and agencies with a worldwide network of mobile website and app publishers. For advertisers, the platform offered access to a large mobile audience, providing tools for targeted campaigns using graphic and text ads. The company operated on a cost-effective pay-per-click (PPC) basis, where advertisers only paid for the clicks their ads received. For publishers, developers, and mobile media owners, BuzzCity provided a way to monetize their traffic by serving these network ads. The company primarily served industries such as e-commerce, gaming, travel, and finance. A key feature was its campaign planner, which gave advertisers traffic and demographic data across 200 countries to help strategize their mobile campaigns.

A significant milestone in the company's history was its expansion into markets like Malaysia, India, China, South Africa, Thailand, and Indonesia. In July 2015, BuzzCity introduced its 'Urban Clusters' feature, enabling advertisers to conduct more precise geo-targeted advertising in key cities within emerging markets. Over its lifespan as an independent entity, the firm secured $20 million in funding over two rounds, with notable investors including 3i Group and Naspers. The company's trajectory culminated on August 26, 2016, when it was acquired by Mobads, a London-based global advertising network. The acquisition was intended to create a combined entity with a daily scale of over one billion impressions and 35 million clicks, strengthening its reach in South East Asia and Africa.