Admix raises $25M Series B to scale up in-game ads, and prep for metaverse gaming

Last year we covered adtech startup Admix’s $7 million Series A funding. The London-based company brings ads to games, e-sports, virtual reality and augmented reality. In-game advertising at scale, where advertisers can bid programmatically through traditional ad-buying platforms, rather than relying on an ad agency model, remains an enormous area, largely under-exploited.

Today Admix is doubling down on this very model, with a $25 million Series B round to scale up its “In-Play” solution and prep it for new platforms like metaverses — the likes of Facebook and others are clearly building.

The new raise brings Admix’s total funding to USD $37 million.

The round was co-led by Elefund and DIP Capital. Also participating is Force Over Mass, Notion Capital, Speedinvest, Rocket Capital, Colopl Next, Sure Valley Ventures and Sidedoor Ventures, as well as growth investor Kuvi Capital and angels from the gaming industry.

Samuel Huber, CEO and co-founder at Admix, commented: “We see the internet entering a new stage: Web 3.0 or the metaverse, characterized by real-time 3D interactions and a new creator economy, spearheaded by the video games industry… While many players in our industry are essentially agencies, Admix is building critical infrastructure for creators to monetize their content in the best way possible.”

Serik Kaldykulov, founder and managing partner at Elefund, commented: “Sam and Joe are exactly the type of founders we want to work with at Elefund. They created Admix and In-Play with their incredible vision for the future of digital gaming, and we believe that they will continue to play a significant role in shaping how consumers and businesses exist and interact in what the world will come to know as the metaverse.”

Elaborating, Huber told me that companies in the same space include Bidstack, Adverty, Anzu and Frameplay. However, he said the difference with these entities is that Admix is “building infrastructure to automate the process and serve non-intrusive ads to the right user in the right game at the right time, using data. This tech means scalability (across 300+ games and hundred of advertisers we worked with in the last two years, 90% are self onboarded) and network effects defensibility, which is why VCs are betting on us to dominate the category.”

Admix recently signed deals for In-Play campaigns with Calvin Klein, Schuh, Movember and Sky.