Tapjoy Raises $21M To Accelerate Growth

Social app and game monetization firm Tapjoy, formerly Offerpal, has secured $21 million in a new round of financing led by Rho Ventures and existing investors InterWest Partners, North Bridge Venture Partners, and D. E. Shaw Ventures. Rho Ventures' managing partner Mark Leschly will join Tapjoy's board of directors. Tapjoy specializes in monetization, cross-platform distribution, and publishing services for social games, mobile apps, MMOs, and more. Along with an alternative payment platform featuring offer-based ads, the company's products include cross-platform viral notification channel Social K-Factor and the cross-app promotion bar AppStrip. With this new round, the San Francisco-headquartered firm has now raised over $40 million since its opening in 2007. Tapjoy intends to devote this new cash to further expand its application distribution and monetization capabilities on iOS, Android, and Facebook platforms. It also intends to fund growth across "emerging application ecosystems domestically and internationally", and invest in application media licensing and incubation opportunities. The company currently has over 5,000 app developer advertisers as partners, including Glu, Playdom, MTV and Bing. "This is a very exciting time to be an application developer, with opportunities that span across platforms and regions," says Tapjoy president and CEO Mihir Shah. "We are thrilled to support application entrepreneurs with our industry leading infrastructure, monetization and distribution IP and services."