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Karl Mehta founded PlaySpan Raises $18 Million

si Team
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
si Team
PlaySpan, a provider of monetization solutions for online games has recently secured $18 million in the third round of funding led by Vodafone Ventures and Softbank Bodhi Fund, with the participation of existing investors Menlo Ventures and Novel TMT Ventures. This brings the funding raised by PlaySpan to a total of $42 million. The Santa Clara based company will use the new funding to expand its products, sales and marketing on a global basis. With an aim to capitalize the growth in the Asian gaming market it also plans to expand the presence in Europe and Asia.

Founded by Karl Mehta together with his 12 year old son Arjun Mehta in 2006, Playspan powers virtual goods marketplace across 1,000 video games and virtual world publishers to generate revenue, acquire new users and build customer loyalty. A PlaySpan-powered marketplace lets users sell, exchange and purchase online game items, virtual goods, and game currencies for online games and applications. The company brings services like fraud prevention, merchandising, and promotion to game companies, helping them prevent revenue loss and get better ROI. It sells virtual currency Ultimate Game Card, the world’s first prepaid game card, at 48,000 retailers globally so that users who don’t have credit cards can pay cash for the cards at stores and then enter a code to get virtual currency in a game. The company’s key customers include Adobe, Sanrio, Viacom/Nickelodeon, Disney and Warner Brothers.

Karl Mehta, the CEO of the company has expanded his kingdom by acquiring micro-transaction app developer Spare Change to support its marketplace to power transactions across 180 countries. Now, Mehta is paying attention to get PlaySpan’s platform on other areas, like Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and digital publishing. “We are looking to put PlaySpan on more connected devices like tablet computers, smartphones and connected TVs,” says Mehta.
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