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Once dominated by static hoardings and unchanging posters, India’s outdoor advertising has entered a new digital era. DOOH is no longer a niche experiment, it’s fast becoming the new normal. Dynamic screens let brands engage in real time, tailoring messages by time of day, traffic flow, or audience, making campaigns sharper, relevant, and easier to update. As per EY’s 2025 report A Studio Called India, DOOH is projected to contribute 17% of all OOH revenues by 2027, driven by premium inventory and digitised infrastructure. Today, India has about 185,000 DOOH screens, with 16% being large-format displays (60 inches+) that deliver high recall and engagement. Against this backdrop, Bengaluru-based adtech brand AdOnMo has carved out a distinct niche by focusing on media-dark audiences—consumers who are harder to reach through traditional digital and TV channels. Founded in 2016 by Sravanth Gajula and Sandeep Bommireddi, the startup has scaled from just a few crores in the bank to crossing the ?150 crore milestone in last four years. Today, with 50,000+ digital screens across 27 cities, and raised over $55 mn from investors like Zomato, Bace Capital, Astarc Ventures, Mumbai Angel Network, and a collaboration with Google. The startup powers targeted, real-time ads on cloud-connected digital screens in premium residential and office spaces. Its proprietary tech enables features like dynamic creative optimisation, social-driven ad triggers, and QR/NFC-based interactions. In an interview with exchange4media, AdOnMo co-founders talk about the company’s journey, the gaps in the DOOH industry, reaching ‘media-dark’ audiences, key growth metrics, and more. Excerpts from the conversation: What were the key gaps you identified in India’s DOOH industry, and how did AdOnMo set out to address them? One of the earliest moments that struck us was when we saw a huge billboard still displaying a New Year’s Eve party ad. When we enquired, the club owner told us that premium spots had to be booked three to four months in advance, even if you only wanted them for a week. That lack of flexibility, compared to the instant turnaround of digital ads on Google or Meta, was a glaring gap. The second issue was the operational hassle. If there was even a small mistake, like a wrong phone number, changing the creative meant multiple people physically replacing the hoarding. Similarly, countdown campaigns like “3 days to go” were almost impossible to execute economically on static billboards. We realised the solution was to bring the flexibility of digital into outdoor, making it dynamic, data-driven, and contextual. That’s how we started experimenting with taxi toppers — our first step towards programmatic DOOH. From taxi-toppers to now residential DOOH, tell us about your pivot journey When we started in 2017, our first bet was on taxi-toppers. The idea was to make outdoor advertising as flexible and real-time as digital. We built the hardware ourselves, even bought a second-hand cab to prove the model, and eventually decided to partner with Ola and Uber. But when COVID hit, mobility collapsed overnight and the taxi business went to zero. That’s when we stumbled upon the opportunity in residential DOOH. A housing society asked us for a vendor quote for elevator screens, and we decided to repurpose our tech. In just three weeks, we went live with 10-20 screens in Hyderabad. The response was overwhelming — both large brands and hyperlocal advertisers saw value in reaching gated communities directly. By 2022, we had fully pivoted into this model. How do you differentiate AdOnMo in what many see as a crowded OOH space? Would you position the brand as an OOH player, a digital platform, or a hybrid of both — especially with your focus on reaching ‘media-dark’ audiences? We don’t like to slot ourselves as just another OOH company because our positioning is quite different. When you think of traditional OOH, you think of big hoardings on highways, airports, petrol pumps — places where audiences are on the move. At best, you get a few seconds of attention and there’s hardly any targeting possible. For us, the starting point was simple—where do people spend idle time? We found elevators and lift lobbies to be exactly those moments. Here, you have 45 seconds, one minute, sometimes even two minutes of absolutely captive attention. That lets us run richer, more contextual video ads — in fact, the experience is far closer to connected TV than a static billboard. That’s why we call ourselves digital ambient media, not just OOH. The real USP, and what excites brands, is our access to what we call media-dark audiences. These are people who have cut the cord — they don’t watch cable TV, they don’t subscribe to newspapers, many are on YouTube Premium or ad-free platforms, and they’re not scrolling social media for hours. These audiences are very difficult to reach. With AdOnMo, brands get to reach them in uncluttered, high-quality environments — their homes, offices, gyms, corporate parks. What makes programmatic DOOH more attractive for media buyers than traditional billboards? Could you walk us through the tech stack powering AdOnMo? Programmatic DOOH is often seen as just an easier way to buy billboards, but for us it goes much deeper. We use data to help brands target very specific locations, so it’s not just about buying a screen, it’s about reaching the right audience with precision. And the real power comes when you plug this into a brand’s omnichannel strategy. On the same DSP, you can now reach the same person on mobile, in their elevator, on connected TV or audio — all seamlessly. On the tech side, our entire SSP is built in-house, and we’re integrated with platforms like Google Ad Manager, Lemma, and Broadsign, which connect to DSPs like DV360 and Yahoo that brands are already using. That makes buying our inventory as simple as buying any other digital channel. And unlike static billboards, programmatic DOOH here means data-driven targeting, scale, and measurable impact. Are you experimenting with interactive formats such as QR/NFC-led creatives, shoppable screens, or AR-based engagements? Yes, absolutely. We have already launched AR extensions where static images come alive through your phone, and we run a lot of QR-led campaigns that drive direct engagement. We are also experimenting with NFC, where tapping your phone on a screen can instantly open the same ad or website on your device. The way we see it, these screens won’t remain one-way for long — they’re evolving into two-way, interactive touchpoints between brands and consumers. How does ambient DOOH in residential and corporate spaces deliver a stronger impact compared to traditional hoardings? Unlike malls, airports, or roadside billboards where 30–40 brands fight for attention, our screens are the only advertising inside a property — so we command 100% attention. The environment itself is less cluttered, and because our network is fully digital and connected, we can do contextual campaigns too — for example, we recently ran a Swiggy ad that triggered only when it rained, offering raincoats in 10 minutes. Add to that the impact of short-form, video-led creatives on a 32- or 55-inch screen at close range — it naturally sparks conversations among friends and families. AdOnMo today operates over 50,000 digital screens across India. Could you walk us through some of the key growth milestones and your target audience? We have grown from piloting just 20–30 societies to today operating 50,000+ digital displays across 7,000+ gated communities and Grade-A office spaces in 27 cities, reaching 15–20 million people daily. Our focus is on the ‘overaffluent’ audience—urban consumers with high discretionary spend, whether in metros or Tier-3 towns. This sharp TG focus has helped us capture nearly 85% market share in our category. What are your short-term and long-term goals? The plan ahead is to scale rapidly to 100,000 screens, and eventually 200,000–500,000, consolidating our leadership in the fast-emerging ‘ambient digital’ space—a unique middle ground between outdoor and digital advertising. On city expansion, we started with the top six metros (Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune, Chennai) since they account for ~70% of India’s ad market. There’s still a lot of headroom within existing metros, especially in premium pockets like South Mumbai and BKC, where brands see us as a must-have. Beyond metros, we’re expanding into high-potential Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities like Lucknow, Kanpur, Indore, and Mohali, and even markets like Tirupati, where the affluent audience metrics were surprisingly strong. In these cities, we don’t limit ourselves to gated communities; we also go into high-footfall spots like supermarkets, popular restaurants, and gyms. On the corporate side, we’ve built a monopoly too, exclusive with Raheja Mindspace, several DLF and Hiranandani tech parks, and practically every co-working brand, including WeWork, Smartworks, IndiQube, and CoWrks. FY25 marked another year of growth for AdOnMo. Where are your key investments focused as you look ahead? FY25 was another strong growth year for us. We crossed revenues upwards of ?150 crore, growing 50–60% year-on-year. While the business requires heavy upfront investment, we’re very conscious of unit economics and profitability. Our largest investments continue to be in scaling the network and infrastructure, as we build for long-term leadership in this category. Adonmo is the only solution for brands aiming to reach the 'media dark' audience, individuals whose attention isn't captured through traditional or digital media channels. How are advertisers responding? Are you seeing greater traction from mid-sized, D2C, and digital-first brands that traditionally couldn’t afford large billboards? The advertiser response has been extremely positive. While we continue to see strong traction from hyperlocal brands, the big shift is the growing presence of large brands. Over the last year alone, multiple large brands have spent over a crore on single campaigns with us, which is a huge validation of our medium. Retention is also exceptionally high, we have ~85% repeat rate among our top advertisers. Cohorts from as far back as 2020 continue to grow their spends with us by 45–50% year-on-year, alongside new client additions. We are also seeing a steady inflow of new advertisers, including D2C brands who now find our media highly effective. From an industry perspective, how do you see the next phase of DOOH marketing evolving in India—especially with recent shifts like the ban on gaming ads? We believe the next few years will be transformational for DOOH in India. Advertisers are moving beyond pure performance spends and recognising the importance of sustained brand investments, which is a big tailwind for our space. Programmatic buying is also picking up, opening the door for new budgets and clients. Regarding the gaming ad ban, we’ve always been cautious about working with grey-area categories like real-money gaming. While players heavily dependent on that sector may feel an impact, we’ve built our business on categories like auto, real estate, FMCG, and tech. So, the overall momentum remains very strong.
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