Chitika

Venkat Kolluri, CEO of Chitika Inc., has made an art of creating an inviting workplace to employees of his Internet advertising firm in Westborough.

Southborough-based Cidewalk has integrated its mobile advertising platform for small business clients with e-mail marketing services provider...

There are a lot of exciting things about starting your own business, but the isolation many entrepreneurs feel when they start out can be debilitating, said Venkat Kolluri, the chief executive of Internet advertising firm Chitika in Westborough. He remembers working alone in his home back in 2003 when he was trying to get Chitika off the ground. After the first few days, he said he started talking to himself because there was no one else to kick around ideas with. “How well can you be motivated when you're alone?” Kolluri said.

Venkat Kolluri, CEO of Internet advertising companies Chitika Inc. in Westborough and Cidewalk Inc. in Southborough, describes...

Westborough-based Chitika Inc., an Internet advertising company, on Wednesday announced it will spin off its mobile advertising business unit, Cidewalk. Chitika is investing $4 million to fund the spinoff, according to a statement, and Cidewalk has purchased office space in Southborough to accommodate staffing growth. Chitika expects Cidewalk, launched in 2014, to generate $10 million in gross revenue over the next year, the statement said.

Mobile advertising isn't just for big businesses with big budgets anymore. That's the message one local Internet advertising company, Chitika Inc., is trying to convey to small businesses in the MetroWest region. By partnering with local business groups, the Westborough firm is aiming to acquaint business owners with mobile advertising, and show them they can manage it themselves without shelling out big bucks. It's not so much that mobile advertising hasn't been available to small businesses, said Andrew Waber, a Chitika marketing analyst, but the metrics available to business owners who outsource mobile advertising to third-party services are not all that helpful, he said. Such services typically provide state-level data about who is seeing mobile ads, and where.