SponsorPay raises $5M from Hasso Plattner Ventures and Team Europe Ventures

BERLIN, Germany (June 9, 2010) – SponsorPay, the leading virtual currency monetization platform in Europe, announced today that it has raised $5 million in Series A funding led by Hasso Plattner Ventures. Previous investors Team Europe Ventures and Kite Ventures also participated in this round. The Berlin-based company will use the investment to accelerate growth in international markets and further expand its leadership role in Europe.

“We are very happy that Hasso Plattner Ventures have joined our team of investors. Their international network and experience will help us extend our leadership beyond Europe,” said SponsorPay’s CEO Andreas Bodczek. “We have four times the publishers, three times the staff and double the offers for most European markets than our closest competitors. Most importantly, we consistently generate up to five times more revenue from European traffic when compared with our US-based competitors. Now, it is time to use this clear value proposition to monetize publishers who are not based in Europe but have traffic here,” added Janis Zech, co-founder and Chief Revenue Officer. The company recently signed contracts with leading international publishers 6waves and Perfect World and expects to work with at least 50% of the largest US-based publishers by the end of the year.

This latest infusion of capital is testament to SponsorPay’s tremendous growth – within the past year the company has expanded to 40 employees and serves local advertising offers to over 150 million users in more than 100 countries. "We are pleased with SponsorPay's progress so far and strongly believe that the innovative concept along with the talent across the company, which has already made SponsorPay the European leader, will take it to the next level internationally. Only one year old, they convinced us with their professional management and absolute will to succeed," commented Yaron Valler, partner at Hasso Plattner Ventures. “Congratulations to the team for reaching this next milestone,” said Lukasz Gadowski, partner at Team Europe Ventures.

SponsorPay, established in 2009, has rapidly become the dominant force in virtual currency monetization in Europe. In February this year, it acquired its main European competitor GratisPay. The company works with almost all major Europe-based online game publishers such as Gameforge, Bigpoint, Gala Networks, InnoGames, Café.com and Frogster. On the advertiser side, SponsorPay is focused on building direct relations with branded advertisers to provide user-friendly and transparent offers to online gamers and users of social networks.

SponsorPay GmbH is the European market leader for monetizing virtual goods through offer-based advertising. It was founded in April 2009 by Andreas Bodczek, Jan Beckers, Janis Zech and Team Europe Ventures. The company’s 150+ partners include Europe's leading publishers such as Gameforge, Bigpoint, Gala Networks, AeriaGames, Innogames, Cafe.com and Frogster who appreciate the convenient and efficient way to monetize their games and apps by encouraging previously non-paying users to use virtual currency. SponsorPay’s innovative payment system gives online users free access to premium content such as virtual currencies and items. The company’s commitment to user-friendly, transparent offers and high-quality performance has enabled it to expand its reach to over 150 million satisfied customers across more than 100 countries. Since its acquisition of GratisPay (www.gratispay.com) in February 2010, SponsorPay provides monetization channels for nearly all of Europe’s major online and social games publishers. Learn more at www.sponsorpay.com.

Projjol Banerjea
SponsorPay GmbH
Ackerstr. 14/15
10115 Berlin Germany
Office: +49 30 20 21 56 60 0
Fax: +49 30 20 21 56 61 5
press@sponsorpay.com

This release was published on openPR.