A month after its expansion to Android, Chartboost, the newly launched (already profitable) direct deals mobile ad marketplace for game developers is expanding to Asia. Starting today, the company is rolling out localized versions in Chinese, Japanese and Korean.
Though serving the needs of the mobile app community’s need to monetize via ads, Chartboost’s marketplace isn’t like a traditional mobile ad network. Instead, it allows game publishers to do direct deals with each other, and avoid having to share huge chunks of their revenue with ad networks. It operates under a freemium model: the ad-server technology is free when used for direct deals or internal cross-promotion, but the opt-in ad network offers revenue sharing with publishers.
In Asia, the company has already been working with several leading game developers, including Animoca (Hong Kong), Com2US, Nexon Mobile and Devsisters (South Korea). Here in the U.S., it has well-known names like TinyCo, Pocket Gems and Storm8 on board.
Created by former Tapulous employees, Maria Alegre, now Chartboost CEO, and Sean Fannan, CTO, Chartboost closed $2 million in Series A funding in October, with Translink Capital, SKTVC and XG Ventures. At the time, it said it would focus on international expansion going into 2012, starting with Asia.
Says Algere, the new localized versions will allow Asian game developers to acquire U.S. traffic through the Chartboost marketplace.