Kiip
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 | |
| Available in | English |
|---|---|
| Owner | Brian Wong, Kiip, Inc. |
| URL | Kiip.me |
| Commercial | Yes |
| Launched | 2010 |
| Current status | Inactive |
Kiip was a mobile advertising network.[1][2][3][4] It was co-founded by Brian Wong, Courtney Guertin, and Amadeus Demarzi in 2010. Kiip provided users with tangible rewards, such as a bottle of water for every eight miles run by a user in a game.[2] Kiip's rewards platforms was designed for in-app engagement.[5]
Wong, at 19, developed the idea for Kiip on an airplane, when he observed its passengers on their iPads.[6][7] Many passengers were playing games, where the games' advertisements took up screen space that couldn't be used by the game itself.[6] Wong hypothesized that instead, games could leverage moments of achievement—such as level ups and high scores—with a rewards program where advertisers could make consumer offers.[8][9][10]
In July 2010, Wong teamed with Courtney Guertin and Amadeus Demarzi to found the company,[11] and raised $300,000 in seed capital from True Ventures, Vast Ventures, Paige Craig, Rohan Oza, Keith Belling, Joe Stump, and Chris Redlitz.[12] In subsequent A and B rounds, Kiip had raised a total of $15.4 million from investors including Relay Ventures, Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, Interpublic Group, American Express Ventures, Digital Garage, Crosslink Capital, True Ventures, Venture51, Transmedia Capital, and Verizon Ventures.[1][13][14] In 2016 they received a Series C round of $12 million, for a total of $32 million.[15] In October 2017, Kiip expanded its mobile rewards platform to Amazon’s Fire TV.[16]
Platform
The company said Kiip had about 75 million users per month across about 400 apps by 2013.[17][18][19] The company had offices in San Francisco, New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Vancouver,[20] London, Bogotá, and Tokyo.[1][21][22] Apps using Kiip include games and fitness apps[23] such as RunKeeper.[24] The company had also integrated its system with productivity apps, such as Any.do[25] and Finish 2.0.[26] Kiip is also integrated with the Yahoo! Japan app, which was the first time Yahoo! Japan has integrated a third-party service into its app.[27] Clients included 7-Eleven, Amazon, American Apparel, Campbell's, Ford, Hasbro, Macy's, McDonald's, Mondelēz International (formerly Kraft Foods), Pepsi, Procter & Gamble, Sony Music, Unilever, Verizon and Wrigley.[28]
The company's platform offered real-world rewards to mobile users.[1] It used developer tool software called Kiip Neon.[29] In 2014, Kiip formed a strategic partnership with IPG to release a mobile usage study.[30]