We raised $25 Million in Series B funding!

The official release for this announcement first appeared on TechCrunch on the 26th October 2021. Read that release here.

We’re thrilled to announce that we have just raised a $25 million Series B to take our company to the next level! This makes the total we’ve raised since 2018 to $37 million.

We’re excited to welcome Elefund (US investor in Robinhood, Calm), Notion Capital, DIP Capital, Rocket Capital, Colopl Next, Sidedoor Ventures, and Kuvi Capital to our cap table. A big thanks to our existing investors Force over Mass, Speedinvest, and Sure Valley Ventures for doubling down.

This round is particularly significant because it marks the start of a new phase for us. Our first phase really started in 2018 when Joe (our COO), Mo (our CTO), and myself launched the company. As an ex-indie game studio owner, my belief — still true today — was simply that games deserved a monetization solution that respects the user experience. This is why we created In-Play.

This phase was laying the groundwork for what was to come:

1. Building our core In-Play stack

That includes SDKs for game publishers to integrate with their games, a platform for advertisers and businesses to access the gaming world programmatically, and an ad serving platform capable of handling large traffic with the right measurement and data capabilities.

After tireless work, we have completed almost all of these. While the product can always be improved (and more versions of Unity can be supported!) the core infrastructure is there. When we started in 2018, platforms like this did not exist. Now, we have a full stack platform that seamlessly connects game publishers and advertisers, and handles billions of transactions every month.

2. Proving the model commercially

Proving the model commercially was not just about making money, but proving that our assumptions behind In-Play were correct: ads that do not interrupt users should not affect user retention, and they will likely be infinitely scalable incremental revenue.

This solves a massive problem for publishers who normally struggle between monetization and retention. We have proven time and time again with case studies that Admix enables publishers to monetize without compromise, show more ads without harming their player experience or business strategy, and earn significantly more revenue without showing any drop in retention.

At the same time, we have kept our platform self-served and open to everyone to get feedback from a wide range of publishers and games, and build a larger audience overall. On the advertiser side, we have formed partnerships with large advertising platforms to tap into a broader range of buyers. Today, we count over 350+ apps live on our platform and hundreds of advertisers clients, including large brands like Sky and Clavin Klein.

We’re lucky to be part of a booming market. It’s clear that gaming is evolving into one of the largest media channels in the world, and at a shockingly fast pace too. Our technology happens to facilitate this shift which is hugely exciting, and this latest funding announcement will enable us to start scaling over the next few years.

But that was just phase 1. What’s next?

Our Series B marks the transition to phase 2: applying our technology to the new burgeoning creator economy which will be powered by Web 3.0 — the next phase of the internet.

Web 3.0 will give rise to the metaverse — a collection of real time 3D experiences led by gaming, with a new decentralized creator economy backbone. Our phase 2 is to establish In-Play as a new infrastructure layer for gaming and this emerging metaverse. This will include establishing our technology as a service for game platforms, as well as building new tools for advertisers to engage with their audience in these new worlds.

Make no mistake: this is an expansion, not a pivot. We’re still 100% committed to serve all kinds of game publishers, from mobile all the way to the metaverse. But the world is changing. From the way creators make money to the way that brands engage with their audience — and we’re also committed to being a constructive part of that future, and a guide to bringing others into this hyper-connected world too.

This fresh capital will be to double down on our core differentiator: our In-Play technology. We will invest heavily in product development, serving the creator community and international expansion in the US and APAC. As opposed to many players in the space being agencies, our DNA is to focus on the ‘picks and shovels’.

This would not be possible without our entire team, who continue to smash it every day. And to that team, I can not say this enough: thank you! Your work contributes to creating a new economy in games and virtual worlds, which will impact millions of people. And thank you to our investors for their belief in our vision. Thank you to our customers, publishers, creators, brands and agencies for supporting us during our phase 1.

Stay tuned for exciting announcements over the next couple of weeks. In the meantime, see you in play!

Sam Huber

Originally published at https://blog.admixplay.com on October 26, 2021.