Science Inc. buys company that places ads in 18,000 mobile games
Santa Monica-based Science Inc., which creates, invests in and provides services to start-ups, is giving the companies in its portfolio a new way to make a money.
Science announced Wednesday that it’s buying PlayHaven, a service that places ads in mobile games, including the money-making machine “Kim Kardashian: Hollywood.”
Ads sent through PlayHaven appear in more than 18,000 games, reaching about 245 million users on smartphones and tablets -- or about 34 million more mobile users than Twitter has. Science bought San-Francisco based PlayHaven from analytics company Upsight; the price was not disclosed. But Science Chief Executive Mike Jones, the former Myspace CEO, called it “significant.”
“It’s nice to be, for an L.A. company, on the acquiring side of the table,” Jones said. Revenue from PlayHaven will push Science’s average quarterly sales to $25 million by the end of the year, he said, with a lot of growth potential: PlayHaven has yet to roll out video ads, which are more lucrative than traditional banner ads.
“There’s still a lot of room for PlayHaven,” he said. “They, like the broad mobile industry, are focused on games. We believe their network can be applied to the content sector as well.”
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