gWallet Launches Early-Stage Venture Fund To Invest In Social Gaming Startups

Leena Rao

Leena Rao is currently a Senior Editor for TechCrunch. She recently finished graduate school at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, where she studied business journalism and videography. From 2004 to 2007, she helped lead Congresswoman Carloyn Maloney’s community outreach and relations efforts in New York City. She graduated from Columbia University in 2003, where she was... → Learn More

Wednesday, January 20th, 2010

Virtual currency monetization platform gWallet is announcing a new early-stage venture fund, gWallet Ventures, to invest in social gaming companies and promote innovation within the social gaming ecosystem.

gWallet, which recently raised $10 million in funding, has already begun searching for investment opportunities in gaming developers on Facebook and MySpace, as well as smaller social gaming companies that are looking to bring their games to the masses. Investments will range from $100,000 to $1 million per company. Of course the investment is also tied with adopting the monetization opportunities that gWallet can provide for publishers. Chahal says the investment fund was formed with excess funds from its recent round of funding.

Founded by serial entrepreneur Gurbaksh Chahal, gWallet works directly with brands directly as opposed to adopting an affiliate leads model and uses branded video campaigns to engage with consumers. Disney, Best Buy, K-Mart, Nestle, Coke, and The History Channel are all using gWallet’s video campaigns on social networks, which are powered by Tube Mogul.

gWallet contends that video content is drawing visitors to review and complete more offers. In one week, gWallet reports that its campaigns received over 480,000 views and over 1 million minutes of total viewing time with user engagement averaging more than 2 minutes per video campaign. Publishers that deployed gWallet videos noted that revenue increased up to 600 percent.

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