Peer-to-peer mobile ad network Tapdaq completes $1.4m seed round

London-based Tapdaq, the “world’s first” peer-to-peer mobile advertising exchange, has closed a $1.4m seed round led by venture capital firm Balderton Capital.

The deal also saw participation from Open Ocean Capital, and private investors Marc Nohr, Steve Pankhurst, Tim Ward, Doug Scott, and former head of AdMob EMEA head Russell Buckley; who has joined the start-ups board as i chairman.

Founded in 2012 by Nick Reffitt, Dom Bracher, and LittleGossip.com founder Ted Nash, Tapdaq claims to be the “world’s first” community-driven app advertising network enabling independent developers to advertise within each other’s creations using its own currency ‘daq’.

Developers earn ‘daq’ by promoting other developer’s apps and driving users to them, each developer sets their own ‘daq’ price per app install which it says allows the “best apps to succeed not the richest”.

Tapdaq CEO, Nash, said: “Tapdaq is our response to the ever escalating cost-per-install advertising arms race, which has now completely isolated the vast majority of the independent mobile developer community, many of whom have little or no budget to spend on advertising their work.

“As mobile developers ourselves, we know the market is in need of a serious shake up, and with Buckley’s expertise now on board we can’t wait to grow Tapdaq into the solution developers have been crying out for.”

Buckley, who was the first employee at AdMob and helped launch its EMEA division prior to its $750m sale to Google, said:

“Having worked amongst the great and the good of the mobile advertising industry, I have been waiting for a company innovative enough to disrupt the existing setup for driving app downloads, and I believe Tapdaq is just that.”