Change Ventures led adtech firm Monetizr's $4 million round
Photo: Monetizr founders Andris Merkulovs and Martins Bratuskins
Latvian in-game advertising company Monetizr has secured $4 million of new funding. This $4 million round was led by Change Ventures, with participation by prior investors Techstars and Ludus Ventures. The round was also joined by prominent angel investors, notably Ari Paparo, CEO at Marketecture Media and former executive at Google and Beeswax, and Jared Schrieber , Founder of InfoScout/Numerator. Monetizr will use the funds to scale its US sales team and build out its European dev hubs in London, Riga, and Helsinki.
Monetizr is a platform for brand advertisers to create more meaningful experiences and collect consumer data from inside a network of mobile games. Brands are struggling to reach consumers, especially Gen-Z and women, who now spend a lot of time playing games, a media channel that has traditionally been hard to access efficiently. The current dominant advertising format, a short video ad, is disliked by both consumers (because it disrupts game play) and the game publishers (because a successful ad takes the player away from the game). Monetizr's solution is to deliver in-game advertising experiences that are integrated into the game play, deliver rewards tied to progress in the game or based on additional consumer actions (e.g. providing email opt-in) and do not remove the player from the game. It turns out that this is exactly what major brands are looking for. According to Change Ventures, the team is now able to demonstrate exceptional consumer engagement. One of the Monetizr's customers is P&G with several of its large brands, such as Tide, Charmin and Downy.
“We’ve been following Monetizr for a few years and we are delighted to be investing now as we believe it is the last chance to get on board before the company embarks on an explosive growth trajectory. Speaking to Monetizr’s clients, they tell us it is the only ad platform delivering engaging, scalable in-game advertising that gamers don’t hate. We believe Monetizr is the spark that is going to ignite global mobile games advertising,” said Change Ventures' Partner, Andris Berzins.
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Latvian in-game advertising company Monetizr has secured $4 million of new funding. This $4 million round was led by Change Ventures, with participation by prior investors Techstars and Ludus Ventures. The round was also joined by prominent angel investors, notably Ari Paparo, CEO at Marketecture Media and former executive at Google and Beeswax, and Jared Schrieber , Founder of InfoScout/Numerator. Monetizr will use the funds to scale its US sales team and build out its European dev hubs in London, Riga, and Helsinki.
Monetizr is a platform for brand advertisers to create more meaningful experiences and collect consumer data from inside a network of mobile games. Brands are struggling to reach consumers, especially Gen-Z and women, who now spend a lot of time playing games, a media channel that has traditionally been hard to access efficiently. The current dominant advertising format, a short video ad, is disliked by both consumers (because it disrupts game play) and the game publishers (because a successful ad takes the player away from the game). Monetizr's solution is to deliver in-game advertising experiences that are integrated into the game play, deliver rewards tied to progress in the game or based on additional consumer actions (e.g. providing email opt-in) and do not remove the player from the game. It turns out that this is exactly what major brands are looking for. According to Change Ventures, the team is now able to demonstrate exceptional consumer engagement. One of the Monetizr's customers is P&G with several of its large brands, such as Tide, Charmin and Downy.
“We’ve been following Monetizr for a few years and we are delighted to be investing now as we believe it is the last chance to get on board before the company embarks on an explosive growth trajectory. Speaking to Monetizr’s clients, they tell us it is the only ad platform delivering engaging, scalable in-game advertising that gamers don’t hate. We believe Monetizr is the spark that is going to ignite global mobile games advertising,” said Change Ventures' Partner, Andris Berzins.
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Photo credit: Pavol Svantner on Unsplash