We’ve learned that former Digger and teen entrepreneur Brian Wong has just wrapped up a $300K angel round for his mobile gaming ad startup Kiip. You first read about Wong when our own Mike Arrington wrote about the 19 year old being the youngest founder to ever receive venture investment.
Now Wong has racked up a laundry list of investors from big brands including True Ventures, SimpleGeo CTO Joe Stump (in his first angel investment), CMO Rohan Oza of Vitamin Water, PopChips CEO Keith Belling, Doug Chertok and Paige Craig in a round of funding conspicuously bereft of the usual Super Angel suspects.
Along with the financing, Wong is announcing that Kiip is bringing on former Digger Courtney Guertin as co-founder and CTO and Amadeus Demarzi as co-founder and design director. Wong plans on using the newfound cash for further hiring and distribution partnerships and Kiip will be rolling out in alpha in the coming months, with a public launch date in January.
Wong says that Kiip (prounounced “Keep” as in “Keep me”) will attempt to move “beyond the banner ad” and leverage in game elements without compromising game play; “We’re doing the first catered ad product for the mobile games space, beyond the virtual goods and virtual currency folks [who are] potentially our main competitors.”
It looks like Kiip might be stiff competition. The startup, still in stealth, has already wrangled five game publisher partnerships (Wong would not disclose which ones) and currently boasts an audience of over 2 million active users monthly.