Cobalt has advised Change Ventures on leading a EUR 3.6 million investment round into Latvian advertising experience platform Monetizr, with the participation of Techstars and Ludus Ventures.
According to Cobalt, Monetizr offers a "revolutionary in-game advertising platform that enhances the mobile gaming experience. The company focuses on assisting brands to reach, engage, and convert over 300 million global mobile gaming consumers." The start-up works with major consumer brands like Procter & Gamble and top game developers like Voodoo Games.
Monetizr is now headquartered in Atlanta, the US. It will use the funds to scale up its US sales team and build out its European development hubs in Riga, Helsinki, and London.
"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," Change Ventures stated when announcing the investment. "The current dominant advertising format, a short video ad, is disliked by both consumers (because it disrupts gameplay) and 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 gameplay, 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. The team is now able to demonstrate exceptional consumer engagement."
The Cobalt team included Partner Toms Sulmanis, Senior Associate Agnese Gerharde, and Associate Vadims Zvicevics.
