Kiip is a mobile advertising network. It was co-founded by Brian Wong, Courtney Guertin, and Amadeus Demarzi in 2010. Instead of digital rewards, Kiip provides consumers with tangible rewards, like a bottle of water for every eight miles run by a user. Kiip’s rewards platforms is designed for in-app engagement.
History
Wong, at 19, developed the idea for Kiip on an airplane, when he observed its passengers on their iPads. Many passengers were playing games, where the games' advertisements took up screen space that couldn't be used by the game itself. 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. In July 2010, Wong teamed with Courtney Guertin and Amadeus Demarzi to found the company, Kiip raised $300,000 in seed capital from True Ventures, Vast Ventures, Paige Craig, Rohan Oza, Keith Belling, Joe Stump, and Chris Redlitz. In subsequent A and B rounds, Kiip has 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. In 2016 they received a Series C round of $12 million, for a total of $32 million. In October 2017, Kiip expanded its mobile rewards platform to Amazon’s Fire TV.
Platform
Kiip is currently active on about 4,000 apps played on 150 million devices. The company has offices in San Francisco, New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Vancouver, London, Bogota, and Tokyo. Apps using Kiip include games and fitness apps such as RunKeeper. The company has also integrated with productivity apps, such as Any.do and Finish 2.0. Kiip is also integrated with the Yahoo! Japanapp, which was the first time Yahoo! Japan has integrated a third-party service into its app. Clients include 7-Eleven, Amazon, American Apparel, Campbell’s, Ford, Hasbro, Macy’s, McDonald’s, Mondelēz International, Pepsi, Procter & Gamble, Sony Music, Unilever, Verizon and Wrigley. The company's platform integrates real-world rewards to mobile users. It also runs the developer tool Kiip Neon. In 2014, Kiip formed a strategic partnership with IPG to release a mobile usage study.
Recognition
Kiip was listed by Fast Company as one of the 50 Most Innovative Companies in the world in 2013 and by Forbes as one of the "4 Hot Online Ad Companies". Kiip was also named to the Dow Jones' FasTech50 List.
Bankruptcy and subsequent acquisition by NinthDecimal
On August 26, 2019, Kiip went into foreclosure terminating the majority of its employees with Diablo management group taking over the closure, sale of assets, and liquidation on September 15, 2019. NinthDecimal acquired the assets in bankruptcy court with subsequent details revealed in lawsuit filings in The Meet Group vs Kiip case filed in San Francisco court.
