NeoEdge raises $3M for ad platform for games

NeoEdge has raised $3 million in venture funding to expand its product offerings for monetizing social games.

The San Francisco company makes a platform that lets publishers put ads into the social games on their web sites. It can add a 30-second video ad to an online game to help publishers make money from free games. The investment shows that, even though virtual goods has become the most popular new business model for games, the advertising side of the business isn’t dead. Rather, it continues to grow.

NeoEdge currently serves more than $100 million video ad impressions per month. It has partnerships with Yahoo Games and iWin, and it recently announced a partnership with Red Atom’s Bar Society on Facebook.

The funding comes from MMV Financial. NeoEdge will use the money to expand its national sales team and come up with new products, including those that will “gamify” ads, or make ads more fun by adding a game-like element.

NeoEdge previously raised money from Vanedge Capital and Jefferson Partners. NeoEdge is headed by Lesley Mansford, chief executive. A year ago, NeoEdge merged with a game developer that was headed by Mansford.

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat at VentureBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.