Silicon Valley Award for Powzy

TiE is a global, not-for-profit network of entrepreneurs and professionals dedicated to the advancement of entrepreneurship. TiE provides a platform for mentoring, networking and education for technology entrepreneurs worldwide. The global network of 54 chapters located in most major North American, Asian and European countries and cities with more than 14,000 members across 13 countries.

For the TiE50 awards each company will be evaluated on three parameters – Business Model, IP Value, and Leadership Team. The winners are announced each year at TiEcon, one of the world’s largest conferences for entrepreneurs. Participating technology start-ups benefit from a vast ecosystem of venture capitalists, angels, and entrepreneurs. Other participant privileges include significant investor exposure, online virtual showcasing and technology and business partnering/networking.

One of the winners of the 2014 edition is Powzy. The start-up from Lausanne offers sponsorship of in-game items from consumer brands monetizing better the non-paying users. Powzy works as an additional payment option: users simply choose whether to pay by credit card for in-app items or get them sponsored. The non-intrusive pull marketing is realized through gamified branded actions such as answering a question, watching a short (30 sec) video, visiting a store or a interactive activity. This creates much higher brand engagement without the user ever leaving the game.

Powzy is a fully automated platform. Developers simply integrate a proprietary toolkit while brands set up their campaign just like in Google AdWords or Facebook Ads. The Powzy platform automatically matches and pushes brands’ sponsorship of in-game items across all the relevant games by the use of a complex algorithm maximizing the value for brands, developers and users. Furthermore, Powzy provides full control over ad placement both to game developers and brands