Greystripe

Sector: Mobile applications

Headquarters: San Francisco, CA

Management: CEO and Co-founder Michael Chang was an Associate at Incubic Venture Capital. CTO and Co-founder Andy Choi was previously Chief Architect at CoManage Corp.

Funding: $1.2 million (series A) from Incubic Venture Fund, Monitor Ventures, and WS Investment Company.

Secret Sauce: Greystripe’s AdWRAP advertising network is a system that brings ads from advertisers and delivers them through a network of free mobile games. The AdWRAP for Publishers technology integrates with the mobile games after the application is completed, so there is no additional code to write or libraries to include in the game. Game publishers visit Greystripe’s publisher’s web interface to upload their game, then download it again, AdWRAPped.

AdWRAP for Advertisers (AFA) is Greystripe’s hosted, enterprise-class mobile advertising management and serving system. AFA is scalable, offering ad targeting, real-time reporting, and campaign management. With any number of useful statistics on a particular campaign, future runs can be pinpointed to ensure the best return on ad dollars spent. AdWRAP uses a web interface and works with existing mobile game platforms. In addition of full-screen and video ads, it also supports surveys and click-to-call.

The trick, of course, is providing quality games that users want to play. AdWRAP’s adjunct GameJump.com provides the free mobile games. As the fledgling company grows, so does the quality of its offerings, both to mobile gamers and ad publishers. Greystripe has about nine mobile game publishers in its corner, including Cellufun, Bogee Interactive, and Big Blue Bubble, covering every genre from casino to action and sports to strategy games. A recent deal with Alten8 for 38 classics, brings total downloads to 100 and counting.

Chang and Co have a good thing going. By wrapping up the entire package (games and their ads), the only thing limiting success is quality of the gaming experience. But the snowball effect will make itself felt as advertisers see the reach this type of ad give them. By filling the coffers of Greystripe, the company becomes even more attractive to mobile game publishers looking for a way to get their products in front of the ever-shifting, ever-restless IM generation.

Seen and Heard: Game Daily Biz says, “If GameJump is the bread of Greystripe, then the AdWRAP for Publishers (AFP) technology is the butter. AFP literally allows publishers to wrap their mobile titles in ads.” Adotas reporting from E3 2006 reported, “AdWRAP uses an opt-in system that will let mobile users download free ad-supported games to their mobile phones.”