SponsorPay, the European leader in virtual currency monetization, has received a “seven-digit” euro investment from Investitionsbank Berlin (IBB), the development bank of the Federal Land of Berlin.
The precise terms aren’t being disclosed, as much as we’ve tried, which is a little odd considering that in its previous funding round the company wasn’t shy of shouting the figure: €3.8m raised in June from Hasso Plattner Ventures, Moscow’s Kite Ventures, and Team Europe Ventures who are the original backers of the Berlin-based startup. We’ll let you draw your own conclusion.
SponsorPay enables online gamers to earn virtual currency by taking part in offers from its various advertising partners, such as signing up for a product trial etc. The company says it will put the new funds towards developing new product features for both advertiser and publisher partners, improving security and fraud prevention measures as well “optimizing the manner in which specific international audiences are addressed”.
SponsorPay’s partners include leading games publishers Gameforge, Bigpoint, Gala Networks, 6waves, Perfect World, Weka Entertainment and Frogster as well as advertisers such as Procter & Gamble, AT&T, Skype, Match.com and DirecTV. Its payment method is integrated in multiple apps and social games on platforms such as Facebook, MySpace, VZnet and Netlog, while the company claims to be Europe’s number one, in part through its acquisition of Hamburg-based GratisPay, enabling it to reach 120 million users across 100 countries.