{"id":1862,"date":"2017-02-22T09:04:44","date_gmt":"2017-02-22T16:04:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.taterboy.com\/blog\/2017\/02\/maple-media-raises-30-million-to-found-a-new-mobile-gaming-empire\/"},"modified":"2017-02-22T09:04:44","modified_gmt":"2017-02-22T16:04:44","slug":"maple-media-raises-30-million-to-found-a-new-mobile-gaming-empire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taterboy.com\/blog\/2017\/02\/maple-media-raises-30-million-to-found-a-new-mobile-gaming-empire\/","title":{"rendered":"Maple Media raises $30 million to found a new mobile gaming empire"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Mapleinformation pills<\/a> COO, prescription<\/a> (left) and Michael Ritter, CEO.” srcset=”http:\/\/1u88jj3r4db2x4txp44yqfj1.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Maple-578×386.jpg 578w, http:\/\/1u88jj3r4db2x4txp44yqfj1.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Maple-300×200.jpg 300w, http:\/\/1u88jj3r4db2x4txp44yqfj1.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Maple-768×512.jpg 768w, http:\/\/1u88jj3r4db2x4txp44yqfj1.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Maple-800×534.jpg 800w, http:\/\/1u88jj3r4db2x4txp44yqfj1.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Maple-780×520.jpg 780w, http:\/\/1u88jj3r4db2x4txp44yqfj1.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Maple-930×620.jpg 930w, http:\/\/1u88jj3r4db2x4txp44yqfj1.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Maple.jpg 1000w” sizes=”(max-width: 578px) 100vw, 578px”><\/p>\n

\n

Maple Media has raised $30 million in private equity to acquire and operate mobile apps and games. The Los Angeles company hopes to make each acquired property more profitable and gain advantages of scale in marketing to mobile audiences.<\/p>\n

Shamrock Capital<\/a> invested the money in Maple Media, which is led by game and tech veterans Michael Ritter and Clark Landry. Maple Media has been operating for a while and it has already amassed an impressive collection of apps and games.\u00a0Maple Media currently manages over 150 apps with several billion monthly mobile ad\u00a0impressions.\u00a0It is focused on mobile apps in the\u00a0utility, productivity, games and\u00a0entertainment verticals.<\/p>\n

Ritter was a founding employee at Jam City (formerly SGN Games) where he served as the senior vice president of business and corporate development. While at Jam City, Ritter spearheaded numerous acquisition transactions, negotiated\u00a0contracts with some of the largest mobile gaming companies in the world, including Netmarble\u00a0and Netease, and developed the company\u2019s mobile monetization and advertising strategies.<\/p>\n

Landry was an early investor in advertising technology companies Traffic Marketplace (acquired\u00a0by Vivendi), Adconion Media Group (acquired by SingTel), and TheTradeDesk. He also invested in mobile gaming publisher Scopely and 90 other companies.\u00a0He was a cofounder of several companies including Shift (acquired by Brand Networks), TagWorld (acquired\u00a0by Vivendi), and Minds & Machines.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have already been working on this for a while,\u201d said Ritter, founder\u00a0and CEO of Maple Media, in an interview with GamesBeat. \u201cWe want to acquire games and apps and growth their user bases, but not through traditional user acquisition channels.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maple Media is taking a curated approach of finding high-quality apps that could use an audience boost.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe work on improving the user experience for the apps and the user acquisition,\u201d he said. \u201cWe figure out what is working. We try to see how it is monetizing. We optimize them to maximize revenue growth. We build the retention and grow the user base so there is a more long-term user experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ritter said that the company talks to game and app developers to find apps that fit the profile. They negotiate a price that is attractive and that often helps those teams move on to other projects that they want to do. Maple Media takes over the operation of the game or app.<\/p>\n

\u201cMichael and Clark are well known, highly respected managers with the perfect skill sets and\u00a0backgrounds to address this opportunity\u201d said Alan Resnikoff, Partner at Shamrock Capital, in a statement. \u201cWe\u00a0could not be more excited to partner with them.\u201d<\/p>\n

The company is building a large mobile user base through acquisitions and\u00a0partnerships with leading mobile properties.\u00a0Maple Media is the most recent investment in Shamrock\u2019s latest fund, Shamrock Capital Growth\u00a0Fund IV, a 700 million private equity fund which held a final close in February of 2016, focused\u00a0on providing buyout and growth capital investments in companies within the media,\u00a0entertainment and communications industries.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe breadth and depth of relations with people in the industry are great,\u201d Landry said. \u201cSome of these we do through acquisition. Some are under contract. We wouldn\u2019t say they are leaving money on the table. Rather, it\u2019s that we have better skill sets when it comes to managing content.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ritter said that the company is running a cash-flow positive business already. Cross promotion is one of the tools that the company uses, but it\u2019s not the only one.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe quality bar for apps is going higher, and it is hard for developers to start with zero revenue,\u201d Ritter said. \u201cThe ecosystem has moved to games as a service, but that part of the business is hard to execute.\u201d<\/p>\n

The company has six employees.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe hope to create a large mobile media company,\u201d Landry said. \u201cWe want to run it for a long time and provide liquidity for app developers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Powered by WPeMatico<\/a><\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Read the full article…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1863,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[174,377],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-games-media","category-gaming"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t