Peter Kafka

Recent Posts by Peter Kafka

What Ad Network Problem? Vungle Raises $6.5 Million for Mobile Video Ads.

Public investors aren’t very excited about ad networks and ad technology. But private money is still placing bets.

The newest: A $6.5 million A round for Vungle, a mobile ad network focused on “in-app” ads.

The last time we had heard from Vungle, a little more than a year ago, they had raised a $2 million seed round from folks like CrossLink Capital, Google Ventures and AOL Ventures. Now CrossLink is leading the new round, and Google, AOL and earlier investors are back, as well.

Vungle’s main pitch is to app developers who want to promote their programs inside other people’s programs. But the company has also been branching out into more conventional brand advertisers, too.

CEO Zain Jaffer said he’s well aware of the trouble other ad networks are having when they go public — he put money into Tremor Media and YuMe, and both of those have been duds — but he argues that by combining mobile and video and in-app ads, he’s doing something different.

It’s hard to imagine his big competitors leaving him much room — Facebook in particular has been talking up its success as an app advertising platform — but Jaffer does say he’s growing fast: He said his ads have been viewed two billion times in the last year.

And here’s what a Vungle ad looks like. Perhaps you’ve heard of the game they’re advertising:

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Nobody was excited about paying top dollar for a movie about WikiLeaks. A film about the origins of Pets.com would have done better.

— Gitesh Pandya of BoxOfficeGuru.com comments on the dreadful opening weekend box office numbers for “The Fifth Estate.”