• by Ben Frederick  @mp_benfred, July 15, 2015

An independent mobile advertising platform is carving out new territory in the mobile ad world, stepping up against Google and Facebook.

InMobi, a Bangalore-based company, unveiled Miip last night, a discovery platform that provides curated content for users in apps via a mascot– a monkey also named Miip.

Naveen Tewari, InMobi’s Founder and CEO, promises to put the consumer first with their personalized content. His mobile ad network serves 1.2 billion ads, but he thinks many consumers see those ads as irrelevant to their experience.

Moving away from a push model, the application hopes to become a sort of personal shopper for consumers. For example, someone listening to rock music on Spotify might see Miip the monkey appear instead of an ad, with recommended concert tickets, instruments, reviews and other merchandise all available in one discovery zone.

Partnering with Stripe for secure payments, customers can buy products with a button directly through the ads, as well. The buy button continues a trend many advertisers have jumped on, including Pinterest, Twitter and Facebook. Beta advertisers include Spotify, Machine Zone, JustFab, The RealReal, Joyus, Rhymeo and Vidzy.

InMobi is valued at over $1 billion, with investors like Sherpalo, Soft Bank and KPCB. There were noises about a Google buyout earlier in the year, but with the new announcement Tewari has quashed those rumors.