Double Fusion secures USD 10 million funding, appoints new CEO

In-game advertising company Double Fusion has announced a successful round of financing which closed at USD 10 million. In addition, Geoff Graber, former GM at Yahoo! Games has been appointed as the company's new CEO.

The recent round of financing was led by Accel Partners and Jerusalem Venture Partners (JVP) and will be used by Double Fusion to move its headquarters from Jerusalem to the San Francisco Bay Area, as the firm makes more aggressive marketing strategies to reach more top-tier publishers in the industry.

As part of the financing, the company's board of directors will be joined by Harry Nellis and Bruce Golden of Accel and Allon Bloch of JVP. Commenting on the financing deal, Accel Partners' principal, Harry Nellis stated: "Videogames have become ubiquitous in today's culture, and finding the right ways to connect brands with them is the logical extension for the advertising marketplace. We are very excited to work with the company."

Double Fusion expects its continued growth and operational expansion to be driven further by the appointment of Geoff Graber as CEO. Graber brings over 15 years of experience in entrepreneurial, media and games businesses, most recently serving as general manager for Yahoo! Games.

Graber oversaw all aspects of the Yahoo! Games website, from strategy and business direction, content creation and website production to business development, marketing, advertising sales and engineering. Under his leadership, the site grew to reach over 23 million users. Prior to that role, Graber led business development for Yahoo! Mobile, seeking new partnerships and growing the distribution network with major operators, in addition to launching Electronic Arts' operations in China.

Elie Wurtman, chairman of Double Fusion and chief executive of JVP Studio commented: "Geoff's experience in building large-scale international businesses, and the breadth of his connections across the video, PC, Internet and mobile games markets, makes his appointment a very exciting step in the company's growth."

Graber added: "The videogaming industry has grown dramatically over the past few years, and advertisers are looking to penetrate this fastest growing media platform. The 'traditional' advertising model no longer effectively captures the 18-to-34-year-old male demographic."

"Marketers see this and are shifting portions of their ad budgets into 'non-traditional' platforms - including videogaming. With clearly superior technology and a truly international footprint, Double Fusion is best positioned to capitalize on the shift of ad dollars."