Inside Social Games

Competition continues to increase in the iPhone and iPod Touch app monetization space, and ad network optimization service AdWhirl recently announced that it secured $1 million in financing in a seed round led by Foundation Capital. Founded in April of this year, AdWhirl has become very popular in a short span of time. More than 1,000 iPhone and iPod Touch developers use the service, which servers over 1 billion impressions per month across 160 countries.

While the recession has been tough on online advertising, investors seem confident in the mobile advertising market.  Charles Moldow, General Partner at Foundation Capital, says that “mobile advertising has seen tremendous growth as more and more advertisers are discovering how to leverage the mobile medium. With AdWhirl’s unique mobile platform and growing lead in publisher adoption, we’re excited that AdWhirl will be well-positioned to lead the way as the mobile ad market continues to explode.”

According to statements from AdWhirl, there are currently more than 270 million mobile subscriptions and 224 million mobile phone subscribers in the US. Furthermore, based on data from Magna’s Interpublic Group, US advertisers are expected to spend around $229 million on mobile media during the course of 2009, a 26 percent increase from 2008.

In order to help developers, AdWhirl provides a platform that can manage ads from networks like AdMob, Quattro Wireless, Videoegg, and Jumptap. In addition, the company plans to add support for Millenial Media and Google AdSense. The platform also allows for the cross-promotion of apps with free custom ads in order to increase distribution and boost paid app sales.

“Our goal as a platform has always been to give developers full control over their ad space,” said Ra Roath, Co-Founder of AdWhirl. “In addition to adding new advertisers and optimizing ad revenues for developers, we intend to expand to other ad solutions such as offer-based rewards, so that developers have the flexibility to maximize revenues through multiple channels.”

Only three months since its inception, the ad platform is doing well. The company is looking to reach potential customers beyong Apple devices with the new funding as well. The company says it will be expanding soon to Android, Blackberry, and Palm Pre devices too.