Odeeo, an audio advertising platform for mobile games, has recently raised $9 million in a seed funding round led by the gaming venture capital Play Venturesand the media & entertainment group Global.
Other investors of the round included Eric Seufert, Heracles Capital; Anton Gauffin, founder of Huuuge Games; Christian Calderon, founder of GameJam; and Lior Shiff, TripleDot Studios founder.
Founded by CEO Amit Monheit and COO Elad Stern in Israel in 2021, Odeeo specialises in non-intrusive audio ad monetisation for mobile game devs and publishers and has integrated more than 500 games into its platform.
Odeeo and Global’s DAX sign partnership deal
Furthermore, the investment leads to a new exclusive sales partnership between Global’s digital advertising platform DAX (Digital Ad Exchange) and Odeeo.
Odeeo will become a sales partner of DAX in the UK and the US to carry out DAX’s audio-related works such as podcasts, digital audio, audio articles, and programmatic outdoor offerings for advertisers and creators.
DAX was created by Global in 2014 in the UK, and expanded to the US and Canada in 2017 and 2018 respectively. The platform seeks to connect advertisers with a global audience listening to music streaming services, digital radio, and podcasts.
“We’ve noticed a very large knowledge gap by all audio advertising entities regarding the mobile gaming industry”
In a prepared comment, Odeeo co-founder, Amit Monheit, stated: “There’s huge potential to improve how brands advertise in games so Elad and I are delighted to be partnering with Global and DAX. Together, we can help brands explore new opportunities and reach target audiences.”
“Mobile gaming is immensely popular and audio ads in this space are unique as they don’t interrupt the experience. By combining our expertise, we’ll be able to keep innovating and growing the in-game audio world.”
PocketGamer.biz briefly spoke with Monheit to get his thoughts on the firm’s plans for the $9 million investment, and educating advertisers on the possiblilities of the mobile games industry.
PocketGamer.biz: We’re seeing a lot of external entities showing more committed interest in the games industry, but non-intrusive audio ads remain specialist even to games industry stalwarts. Can you discuss how your conversations with DAX went, and what differences (if any) there were between expressing the value of non-intrusive audio ads to DAX compared to more games-centric entities?
From first working on the concept of in-game audio advertising, we’ve noticed a very large knowledge gap by all audio advertising entities, including DAX, with regards to the mobile gaming industry. Therefore, we’ve focused our efforts on educating them about the diverse and scalable gaming audience, as well as on the in-game advertising market.
One of the funding participants from Eric Seufert. His authority in the mobile games space is indisputable, how did you persuade him to participate in the seed round?
Eric and Play Ventures as well were both big believers in our vision from day one.
I think that we were able to win their trust and support mainly thanks to a combination of our experience from the space, coming from ironSource, and their deep understanding of the mobile advertising landscape.
What areas of Odeeo are you looking to expand with the $9mil investment?
Up until now we’ve validated our idea in scale and now it’s time for us to grow our team and invest additional resources into our product.
We plan on growing our 23 people team to 40 by end of this year, mostly on the engineering and business sides.
On the product side we have a few upcoming exciting developments which we plan on growing further.
Non-intrusive gaming experience
Stephen Miron, group CEO at Global, also stated in a prepared comment: “We have been following the mobile gaming sector and particularly Odeeo’s growth for some time, and are pleased to announce both this strategic investment and Odeeo’s appointment of Global, through DAX, to be their exclusive sales partner in the UK and US.”
“This reinforces our strategy of being the market leader for all forms of audio advertising, across live radio, podcasts, audio articles, and now mobile gaming. We’re looking forward to partnering with Amit and Elad to help the gaming creator community make the most of audio advertising opportunities.”
In-game audio ads are becoming increasingly prominant in the mobile games space, with Odeeo and AudioMob recently partnering with Pocket Gamer Connects to detail thoughts on how to continue to serve players engaging ads without fundamentally disrupting their experiences.
