Vancouver Startup Acquires $50 Million Ad Platform

Yesterday Vancouver startup Playerize tweeted an intriguing message: “Playerize is to startups as Jack Bauer is to mortals. Write that down”.

Turns out where there is smoke, there is fire.

Today Playerize announced they have entered into an agreement to acquire SuperRewards, the Vancouver-born pioneer of virtual currency for social and mobile games. According to their blog they will be acquiring SuperRewards from its original founder Jason Bailey.

Founded in 2007 by Jason Bailey and Eugene Kaidalov, SuperRewards was bootstrapped from zero to a $100 million run rate to exit, all in 18 months. The company was acquired in 2009 by Adknowledge for a rumored $50 million.

Bailey recently reaquired SuperRewards from Adknowledge and is selling it to Playerize.

Playerize was co-founded by Lyal Avery and Jeff Magnusson in 2011 and was the shining star of FounderFuel’s inuagural accelerator cohort in Montreal.

They returned to Vancouver with a $1.1 million series A round. So it’s safe to say that the price tag for the 2012 version SuperRewards was a fraction of the price Adknowledge paid just three years ago.

“The platform has undergone a lot of growth and improvement and there is a tremendous opportunity in the mobile and social game monetization space and we are extremely proud and excited,” said Lyal Avery, co-founder of Playerize.

The SuperRewards team and products will operate from offices in both Vancouver and San Francisco. Jason Bailey will be joining Playerize’s board as Chairman.

“We just hit our tipping point,” adds Lyal. “This is a huge day for us.”