In yet another sign mobile advertising is perking up, Chicago-based mobile marketing company Vibes Media announced $15 million in a first round of funding today. The privately held company, which has been operating for the past ten years, plans to use the new-found funding to acquire smaller fish in the market, as well as scale up their own 70-person shop. Fidelilty Ventures was the sole participant in this round of funding, and will see partner Dave Power join Vibes board of directors.

“Brands are actually starting to commit real money to mobile advertising,” says Alex Campbell, co-founder and chief executive at Vibes. The company says it has handled over 50,000 mobile campaigns, working for clients like Texas Instruments and Pepsi. Vibes has also worked with television shows to incorporate mobile into their marketing recently running campaigns for shows like Gossip Girl and 90210, as well as working with outdoor concert series Lollapalooza. Their campaigns include techniques like ring tones, text-messaging marketing pushes, and creating Web pages optimized for mobile browsers.

Looking towards potential acquisitions, the company plans to remain firmly in the mobile space. Campbell seemed to indicate they wanted to expand into location-based advertising, a concept that has seen a lot of heat behind it with the growth of GPS units in phones — most notably, of course, in the iPhone 3G.

Campbell and crew have every reason to be optimistic about their business. Vibes has been profitable for years, and recent forecasts of mobile advertising spending range include staggering numbers like $14.4 billion in 2011 from Wireless Week or $19 billion by 2012 as predicted by eMarketer. eMarketer pegs this years total worldwide spending at $4.6 billion.

Still, it seems like since 2006 or so, every year has been predicted as the year that mobile advertising finally breaks big. What makes this year different? “The biggest sign that we believe in [mobile advertising's growth],” says Campbell, “is that we just did this round of funding. There’s been plenty of interest on the VC front for years. For us to make this change, and bet on the large opportunity that is out there — we’re putting a pretty big stake in the ground.”