Rhythm NewMedia, a pioneer in mobile advertising, announced that it has closed $18 million in Series B financing. Carlyle Venture Partners, the US venture and growth arm of The Carlyle Group, a global private equity firm with over $44 Billion under management, led this up round, joined by all existing institutional investors. Allan Thygesen, a Carlyle Managing Director, has joined the Rhythm NewMedia board of directors, joining existing investors Gary Little from Morgenthaler Ventures and Chris Schaepe from Lightspeed Venture Partners.

Rhythm was seed funded by Rembrandt Venture Partners. Lightspeed and Morgenthaler co-led the Series A in July 2005.

“We have followed Rhythm carefully since our first meeting last fall, and are very impressed with how they have translated early thought leadership into market leadership in mobile video advertising,” said Allan Thygesen, Managing Director at The Carlyle Group. “With 3G network rollouts completed and 3G handsets becoming the mainstream feature phones, our dialogue with carriers demonstrated that the next phase of mobile video will be partially or completely advertising financed. We are delighted to support the outstanding management team at Rhythm as they begin large scale commercial deployments with leading operators.”

Chief Executive Officer Ujjal Kohli said, “Rhythm has demonstrated its technology and business model over the last 15 months with successful trials in the US and in Europe. Commercial launches are now in the works. We are fortunate to now have the support of The Carlyle Group, with its unparalleled global capabilities. This new capital will allow Rhythm to rapidly expand our product offering and expand into new markets.”