HitFox-Incubated Mobile Games Marketing Platform AppLift Raises $13M Series A

As mobile gaming has exploded, it follows that startups helping to feed and in turn feed off the mobile gaming ecosystem are poised for growth. One such company is AppLift, the mobile games marketing platform co-founded and backed by games distribution incubator HitFox, which today is announcing that it’s closed a $13 million Series A round from Prime Ventures.

It plans to use the new funding to invest in its platform and “accelerate” international growth. This will include AppLift staffing up in engineering, other product specialists and business development, adding a further 50 to its head-count by the end of the year. Positions will be filled in its Berlin headquarters and existing offices in San Francisco, Seoul, and Paris — with funds also pegged for further geographical expansion. “We will both hire more people in our existing offices and open new offices, especially in Asia,” HitFox co-founder and CEO Jan Beckers tells TechCrunch.

AppLift’s marketing and monetization platform helps games publishers acquire more users for its games, and in turn generates revenue for affiliates who want to monetize their mobile sites and apps by sending qualified leads AppLift’s way. Its 500+ media partners include the likes of RTL and Closer, while the company is currently partnering with over 80 mobile game publishers, such as King, Wooga and Kabam, who are seeing as much as 1 million “high-quality” installs per month as a result.

In addition, AppLift`s platform is able to track, measure and benchmark the quality of players delivered with regards to retention, virality and, perhaps most importantly, monetization, such as in-app purchases. “Game publishers are able to adjust their spendings for different traffic sources based on the quality of the users they get,” explains Beckers.

Founded in 2012 by HitFox Group, Kaya Taner and Tim Koschella, AppLift attributes some of its speedy growth to synergies with other companies in HitFox’s portfolio, specifically its acquisition of ad2games, a company it notes was already active in “the space of user acquisition”.

Finally, I’m told that from start to finish, the investment from Prime Ventures was closed in under 5 weeks, which is pretty fast for a round of this size. Perhaps as a result, when I spoke to Beckers last week, he was sounding even more bullish than usual. He’d just returned to Berlin from a trip to Singapore — mainly for business, but with a few days vacation — and told me that HitFox and AppLift co-Founder Tim Koschella is now permanently based in Asia, first to grow its Korean office and then to open new offices elsewhere in the region. China, Japan and Singapore are cited as likely candidates to be next.

Meanwhile, Beckers says that two months ago HitFox co-founder Hanno Fichtner, along with his family, moved to the U.S. to strengthen the incubator’s presence across the pond, including hiring more staff stateside.

Chalk this up as another European startup thinking truly global, one long haul flight at a time.

10 Stroller Games for Tots

The kids loved the windows and getting to watch the world as I ran!

Exercise with your kids

Sing a silly song together – make up the songs, or change the words of the songs you and your child know.

Pretend you are a car a “vroom” and your way along the sidewalks.

Have your kids play Red light Green light with you.  As you push, they get to decide if it’s green and you run, yellow and you walk or red and you come to a stop.

I Spy.  Ask them to identify things that you see as you walk.  If they are older, have them guess at what you are looking at.

Check out the storage!  We were able to fit a gallon of water, bag of
apples, blankets to sit on, plates/cups, and dinner for the kids and I 
- with room to spare in our Zumu!

More Outdoor Activities

Pack a picnic.  Eat a meal or fun snack together halfway through your run.

Beanbag Toss.  Give your child a bean bag.  They throw it ahead of you.  Dash with the stroller to the bean bag.  Do a 3 squats, pick it up.  Run for a couple of paces, have your child re-throw the bag and then do jumping jacks or a when you “pick it up”, etc.

Play the Alphabet game.  Find the letters of the alphabet as you walk.

Dance Walk.  Try it with your kids – Dance while you walk – it is guaranteed to make your kids giggle, make you (and any bystanders) smile.

The front wheel axle can be easily replaced with a 
bike hitch - very versatile!

Get Moving with the Kids

Draw a curvy line on the sidewalk (or have an older run ahead of you and draw the line for you), do laps following the “swerves”.

Count to 100 together with every step, or if you are in a neighborhood, with every house that you pass.  Then count backwards on your way back home.

Thanks again to Zumu Products for sponsoring this post.  We can’t wait to hitch up a bike and take our kids for a ride!

Please go like them on facebook to learn more how they focus on helping families enjoy outdoor activities together.

Best iPhone and iPad Games for Little Kids

Why I like it: The mini-games in Super Why each take a unique approach to the same themes, giving kids multiple paths to learning letters and words. The pacing is excellent—just slow enough so players understand what they need to do without ever getting bored.

Heyzap Says Its Mobile Ad Network Has Grown To 800 Games (And Makes Up The Majority Of Its Revenue)

Back in March, I wrote about how Heyzap was introducing advertising to its mobile gaming platform. Now co-founder Jude Gomila says the company has become a significant player in mobile advertising.

Specifically, Gomila sent along the chart showing the growth in publishers running Heyzap ads and the corresponding growth in ad impressions over the past six months. You can’t tell exactly where things stand now, because there’s no Y-axis to the chart. However, Gomila did note that Heyzap ads are now running in 800 games (it was 350 in March), and that number is also growing quickly. He also said that the publishers advertising with Heyzap include big names like Zynga and DeNA.

In the six months since the program launched, ad revenue has grown to the point that it already makes up the majority of its revenue. As a result, Heyzap is looking to expand its team beyond the current 25-person workforce.

“This does change our priorities,” Gomila said. “We want to offer full monetization tools for game developers. There’s also opportunity for a lot more automation.”

Gomila refers to Heyzap’s ad program as its “game discovery network” — basically, when publishers pay to promote their games, Heyzap will start recommending that game through interstitial units that pop up in the games. Those recommendations are also based on the gaming data that users share on Heyzap’s social platform, so Gomila said the discovery network and the social tools “go hand-in-hand.”

He argued that this is a much better approach for the mobile gaming ecosystem, because Heyzap can recommend games that users are actually likely to enjoy.

Mobile Games Not As Popular With Millennials, Compared With Other Smartphone Users

Dekko, a San Francisco-based startup that just closed extra funding to build a platform for augmented reality apps, just brought its first title to market with a racing game that has players drive virtual cars across tabletops.

OK, so augmented reality, which overlays virtual items or information over the real world through a phone or tablet’s viewfinder, hasn’t really come into its own yet. There have been plenty of companies like Layar, which built one of the very early augmented reality browsers for the iPhone, which have been around for a few years.

That’s partially because the user experience is still a bit unwieldy with people having to take their phones or iPads out and pan their built-in cameras around. But it’s possible that Google Glass could change all of this.

Dekko, which recently took an additional $1.3 million in funding, is betting that augmented reality’s moment could be around the corner. Other startups are making this bet as well; another companyDaqri just picked up $15 million in a Series A round for augmented reality as well.

“We wanted to solve many of the basic user problems with augmented reality. We had a compulsion to at least show something that’s real and fun,” said co-founder and CEO Matt Miesnieks. “We wanted to build an experience that is kind of magical.”

The game, which you can demo below, has players hold up their iPads over a table. On the screen, you can see cars racing across a virtual track. It can turn any kind of flat surface into racetrack that’s visible on the iPad. The app is also multiplayer, allowing between one and four people to race each other, do stunts and crash into each other’s cars. The multiplayer mode can show a single, real-time shared view.

Tabletop Speed Trailer from Dekko on Vimeo.

To me, it sounds like a proof of concept that demonstrates Dekko’s platform, which was built by the startup’s in-house team of computer vision experts. Eventually, they’ll bring their platform to wearables like Google Glass.

“One thing we know about Glass is that our tech will work on it,” Miesnieks said.

Dekko’s backers include Echo Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners, Venture 51, Blumberg Capital, Launch Capital, Thomvest, Eniac Ventures, and Zig Capital, as well as angels like Howard Lindzon, Erik Moore, Dan Conway, and Raymond Tonsing.

Two More Assassin’s Creed Games Already In The Works

Developer Ubisoft is set to unleash Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag in late October of this year, but it’s not content with just the one title at the moment. Ubisoft is already hard at work on two upcoming Assassin’s Creed games to succeed Black Flag.

Ubisoft is taking its sweet time with the development of the upcoming titles, allowing the team to carve out a unique and innovative storyline and have a chance to change anything if needed without cutting into precious time needed for other parts of the games.

Black Flag is set to be one hell of a game in the Assassin’s Creed series. With Desmond gone (supposedly), and a new kick-ass assassin, it will be interesting to see where the developers take the upcoming titles. Black Flag also seems to a dramatic departure from Assassin’s Creed III, which was set in the US, and Conor becoming one of the most interesting assassins in the  series.

If Ubisoft can match the polish and great storyline we saw in Assassin’s Creed III, then Black Flag will certainly keep fans of the series interested and pining for the upcoming titles.

Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag will be released on October 29th in the US, so we have a few months to wait. For now, be sure to check out the official trailer below.

Torchlight Free on Good Old Games – Grab It Before June 20!

Good Old Games has a major sale going on some classic titles. To sweeten the pot, the site’s also giving away a download ofTorchlight for free!

The title says it all: to celebrate the beginning of our phenomenal 2013 #noDRM Summer Sale, we’re giving away the hack-and-slash masterpiece Torchlight for absolutely free to all of our users, for both Windows and Mac. You have exactly 48 hours to grab your copy of that incredibly fun and addicting action-RPG, complete with a level editor and a sensational MP3 soundtrack. No strings attached, and–of course–absolutely #NoDRM!

All you need to do, is to visit the Torchlight product page and put it in your cart. You’ll pay exactly $0.00 for it, as long as you complete your purchase before Thursday, June 20, at 12:59PM GMT.

The “Summer of No DRM” is happening until July 5th, with daily deals. So, after you nab your free copy of Torchlight, you might consider grabbing both Alan Wake AND Alan Wake’s American Nightmare for just $4.48 (sale ends tomorrow morning). There will be new daily deals throughout the sale.

The sale ends July 5 and the Torchlight giveaway ends on Thursday, June 20 at 8:59 a.m. ET. Check out all the deals and be sure to grab your free Torchlight download.