It’s still too early to announce a gaming console – ads are already appearing on walls and shirts as you play – but brands have taken an interest, says Itamar Benedi, CEO and co-founder of Anzu.io, a automated buy-in platform. . Game announcements on consoles, computers, mobile devices, eSports tournaments and live broadcasts.
On Tuesday, Anzu finished its Series A second round with $ 9 million, bringing its total funding to $ 17 million since 2017. Anzu raised its first $ 6.5 million Series A in 2019.
The current cycle was co-led by VC Games and Esports BITKRAFT Ventures and HBSE Ventures, and included participation from WPP (current investor), Sony Innovation Fund, Alumni Ventures Group, LGBT + company VC Gaingels and The Chicago Cubs (yes, team of baseball)).
Several prominent Angels also contributed to the tour, including Mark Merrill, co-founder of Riot Games, creator of League of Legends, and Dylan Collins, CEO and co-founder of the Kid Tech SuperAwesome ad platform, which was acquired by the owner of Fortnite Epic Games in September.
It’s a busy tour, Bennedy said, but it’s by design.
“The goal is to maximize shareholder value and only raise what we need,” he said. “This tour aims to involve the right companies.”
When WPP joined Anzu’s first Series A, for example, the mere association with the holding company “was very beneficial to us from a demand perspective,” Bennedy said. The hope is that interference from Sony’s investment arm will produce a similar halo effect on the supply side, although Benedy cannot comment on specific next steps, such as whether Sony plans to incorporate the technology. Anzu in his PlayStation console.
Instead of having to install advertisements in a video game, Anzu SDK can be integrated into console games, computer games, and mobile games to display advertisements programmatically.
The ads themselves are integrated directly into the gameplay, usually in the form of branded content that appears as a 3D billboard, a logo on an avatar shirt, or a poster on the wall. Bennedy said that if a shadow falls on the wall in the game, the shadow falls on the poster as well.
Last year, Anzu became the only company licensed to provide in-game advertising services for Microsoft’s Xbox, although it has no relationship with the other prominent game company, Nintendo.
But Anzu technology supports both major game engines, Unreal Engine and Unity, so developers only need to do a one-time integration to make their inventory available through the shopping platforms. Anzu has built tubes for all the major ISPs, including The Trade Desk, Verizon, and Adform.
“Brands can use the same media buying platforms they used to use before and they don’t have to create new assets,” Bennedy said. “They can use what they already have.”
At the same time, game developers control which game items are invested, the formats offered, the types of brands they are allowed in their game, and the data they share with advertisers.
“Brands are introduced to the game the same way they appear in the physical world,” he said. “But we also respect the game and the gameplay. It doesn’t show anything, it’s not full screen, it just becomes an original part of the user experience. ”
Anzu has its own in-house technology to measure visibility in 3D gaming environments, including the size of a creative piece, display time, total visibility, and player viewing angle. Anzu has partnerships with Nielsen, ComScore and Oracle’s Moat to audit the analytics it shares with advertisers. Bennedy said third-party counters make brands more comfortable in gaming environments.
Advertisers are also increasingly comfortable with games in terms of brand integrity, although that is more about brand relevance, he said.
The majority of games don’t include any user-generated content, which makes even the most violent first-person shooters more predictable than YouTube or Facebook’s news feed. Brands that choose to advertise in violent games can get a good idea of what they’re getting into from the start.
“A few years ago we had to educate brands about games in general and why they should be in games,” Bennedy said. “But now they understand that, and the conversation is about more practical things, like what I do and how I do it.”
Anzu plans to devote most of its new turn to growth, sales and marketing, and expanding into new markets, including the United States and APAC. Anzu is headquartered in Tel Aviv, has people on the ground in London and Germany, a newly opened office in Los Angeles, and another site that will soon open in New York.
The company’s current employee count is around 40, which Bennedy said he wants to double this year, with mostly sales and marketing staff.
