Pontiflex
Pontiflex is a mobile advertising company based in Brooklyn, NY. The company uses “Signup Ads” which enables businesses to get contact information of people interested in their products and offers. The ads which appear on mobile apps allow people to sign up with their email address without leaving the app. Advertisers pay only for valid signups.
Products
On the advertiser side Pontiflex launched it's self-serve mobile advertising product for small businesses - AdLeads in March 2012. The product acquired 5000 customers as of July, 2012.
On the publisher side Pontiflex allows app developers to serve ads on mobile apps via AppLeads.
Co-Founders
Pontiflex was co-founded by Roshan Bangera, Zephrin Lasker and Geoff Grauer. Early operations were based out of Lasker's Brooklyn loft, with the team working nights and weekends while they worked day jobs. The trio were longtime friends with backgrounds in product development, distributed computing and digital advertising.
Funding
The company has raised a total of $22.5 million in funding to date. In January 2013 the company completed $7.7 million in Series D funding led by Talus Holdings, a media technology holding company principally backed by Blackstone's GSO Capital. Existing investors RRE Ventures, New Atlantic Ventures and Tribeca Venture Partners also participated in the round.
Awards
The company was featured on Crain’s Best Places to work in New York City at #7 in 2011 and #16 in 2012. The company was selected for the Inc. 500 and ranked #1 on the Lead 411 Technology 500 list in 2010.
Confusion With Pope’s Twitter Handle
The startup found itself in the spotlight when the Vatican announced Pope Benedict XVI’s Twitter handle as @pontifex. Hundreds of people started following the startup on twitter which has a similar sounding Twitter handle - @pontiflex