Chartboost, a San Francisco-based gaming and ad platform, just poached Google Admob’s head of mobile platform and partnership strategy Clay Kellogg to be its chief revenue officer.
Chartboost, which was founded by some alums of an early mobile gaming company that Disney acquired called Tapulous, is a platform where mobile developers can cross-promote their work.
Gaming studios will usually do a direct advertising trade where they’ll market their titles in other developers’ games. Chartboost’s platform has grown to incorporate 4,000 app developers with 2 billion game sessions per month between them.
The company has gained traction at a time when the cost of acquiring users on mobile platforms has risen dramatically. Direct advertising trades give developers some of the benefits of having a large network of players, even if they’re still tiny. The company offers direct advertising trades for free, but developers can pay to promote their app in the company’s network on a cost-per-click or cost-per-install basis.
Maria Alegre, Chartboost’s chief executive, said the company had courted Kellogg for about two months. They had known each other for years though. Kellogg became part of Admob when it was just 30 people, well before it was sold to Google for $750 million in 2009.
Overall, Chartboost has 24 people and has raised funding from Translink Capital, SK Telecom Ventures, and XG Ventures. “We’re not raising any more funding any time soon,” Alegre said. “We’re still profitable and we need to be focused on our business.”