Company: Hovr Inc.
Investor: Angel Investors
Deal Size: Undisclosed
Mumbai: New York-headquartered mobile gaming content provider Hovr Inc. lets users download its games free of cost. All its games are wholly ad-supported, unlike other players in the space, who charge per download. The Indo-US company, which has its development centre in Gurgaon, sources games directly from the developers, and uses proprietary technology to run brand advertisements before and after a gaming session.
Here’s how it works. It ties up with advertising agencies for placement of ads, and works with them on a revenue share basis. In May this year, it partnered with US-based mobile advertising network Third Screen Media Inc., a subsidiary of Internet company AOL Inc. to deliver ads to its users. The company focuses primarily on the US market, but is planning to tap into the Indian mobile subscriber base as well.
“Most of our site traffic comes through search engines, and our greatest numbers come from the US and India,” says Anuj Jain, chief architect, Hovr Inc. Hovr Inc. has 150 gaming titles available for download, and sees an average of 2,500-3,000 game downloads daily.
Three former Rochester University classmates—Vipul Sawhney, Deepak Gupta and Shailan Mohan—and Anuj Jain, a mobile gaming freelancer in India, started the firm in 2006. Sawhney had previously founded US-based mobile content firm ActivePackets. It has a workforce of 10, in India and the US.