TreSensa launches a mobile web game feed to help boost engagement and revenues (exclusive)

TreSensa is announcing the immediate availability of its TreSensa Mobile Game Feed, a platform that allows mobile publishers to create a custom feed with access to curated mobile web games. Players who see the games in the feed can enjoy a “tap and play” experience, giving both publishers and developers a new stream of revenue and better game discovery.

Rob Grossberg, chief executive of New York-based TreSensa, said in an interview with GamesBeat that publishers can integrate the Game Feed into their own media properties, giving users a custom feed of mobile web games that they can play immediately.

Dozens of game studios are already distributing HTML5 (the lingua franca for the web) games on TreSensa’s platform. Mobile publishers such as game news sites or traditional game publishers can gain access to mobile games via TreSensa’s platform, and they can use those games to boost engagement and retention of users for their other content. The game feed also enables new revenue streams through advertising and in-game purchases.

“Gaming is the most popular activity on mobile, accounting for roughly one-third of all time spent on smartphones and two-thirds time spent on tablets,” said Grossberg. “As such, games are a critical part of any publisher’s mobile strategy. With mobile games, audiences win as they have access to what they like most on mobile, and publishers win with increased traffic and revenue.”

TreSensa is an HTML5-based game distribution platform focused on the mobile web. Media companies like Radar Online are using it to get more engaged users. The publishers who adopt Game Feed can select games that are contextually relevant to their audiences from a library of more than 150 games. The average play time is about 15 minutes, which is phenomenal for a brand, Grossberg said.

“We think the biggest opportunity is games in the browser,” said Grossberg. “Our focus in the past couple of years is in getting the widest reach for games. We have been aggregating various distribution channels onto our platform.”

The company has focused on creating an ecosystem for mobile gaming. So far, big brands are the ones that are adopting the Game Feed, Grossberg said. Integrating the Game Feed requires no developer assistance and is as simple as embedding a YouTube video. Game Feeds are configured to match each publisher’s branding and they stand alongside the publisher’s own existing mobile content.

TreSensa has 13 employees with offices in New York and San Francisco. In the past year, TreSensa grew 36 percent month over month, and it raised $2 million in a first round of funding in February. Grossberg and Vincent Obermeier started the company in 2011. At the time, HTML5 wasn’t performing well. But over time, it has improved, and devices that are capable of running HTML5 content are more plentiful in the market, Grossberg said.

“It isn’t there for first-person shooters yet, but it works for a huge range of games,” he said.

“We are constantly looking for fresh ways to deliver compelling content to our audience,” said Joe Bilman, chief digital officer and global head of business development for American Media, publisher of Radar Online and ten additional media properties. “TreSensa’s Game Feed has enabled us to add mobile game content to the Radar Online experience, without the friction of re-directing users to an app store. With minimal effort on our part, we have increased engagement, user retention, and brand-safe ad inventory essentially overnight.”

Game Feed provides multiple revenue streams for publishers. First, TreSensa powers ad placements within Game Feed and supports in-game purchases of virtual goods, a percentage of which goes back to the publisher. Second, TreSensa is integrating custom branded games into Game Feed and offering publishers revenue participation. Third, TreSensa is partnering with publisher sales teams to offer their clients branded mobile entertainment.

“We are signing about three new game publishers a week,” Grossberg said. “We handle the plumbing to get your game across all of these channels. At the end of every month, the developer gets a check.”

Investors include Caribou Asset Management and angel investors including Tremor Video co-founders Jason Glickman and Andrew Reis, American Media CEO David Pecker, and AdMeld founder Ben Barokas. The company has raised $3.5 million to date.