Updated
Reactrix, a Redwood City company that beams interactive advertising onto the floors of malls and theaters, has raised a very large $45 million to allow it to expand and attract new advertisers.
In malls, Reactrix’s product beams light down on to a rectangle mat on the floor. This lets people kick virtual footballs or other objects around on it, among other things. Big brands, such as Coca-Cola, Dockers and Hilton can place their virtual products in the middle of the mat (see image at left).
The company says it has signed exclusive agreements with the nation’s six largest mall owners (known as REITs, for Real Estate Investment Trusts), which the company says gives it access to more than 80 percent of the malls in plum geographic areas. It has got 165 installations, and will be profitable this year, said Reactrix chief financial officer, Peter Bardwick. The company has now raised $68 million since 2001.
He said the large round would be the company’s final one.
Leading the financing were The D.E. Shaw Group and Menlo Ventures. Existing investors Mobius VC, Thomas Weisel Venture Partners and Worldview Technology participated.
One question we have about this: What happens when mall visitors get immune to this sort of thing and begin to glaze over? Will advertisers pay big bucks for this — enough so that this company can make a return on the large amount of cash now invested in it?
6 Comments
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tomo said:
Matt,
You misspelled Reactrix in the first sentence and it links to a parked page.
I seriously think you don’t have spellchecker or nobody proofs these stories as there seem to be gramatical and spelling errors in almost all of them.
Hire a college intern to proof them for you. It’ll be money well spent if it costs you anything.
tomo
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Adam Bruce said:
I’ve seen the kids in the mall line up to be able to play with this ad with their parents standing around watching. Brilliant idea, cool to see the company behind it posted here.
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Matt Marshall said:
Tomo, sorry about that. Caught those yesterday. Thx. About to do something like that.
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Andrew Parker said:
This reminds me a lot of the Bright Nights interactive art display in Union Square Park (NYC) during the holiday season. Here’s a more detailed description: http://blog.andrewparker.net/2006/12/05/bright-nights-in-union-square-park/
Watching people interact with the Bright Nights display made me think this would be PERFECT for artistic and innovative advertising.
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Mark said:
I’ve seen another company with the same product but on the wall and much bigger (and better). I think their called Monster Media.
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Peter Van Dyke said:
Just saw this today, kids going crazy to play on it. Shocked that this is for ads only. This would be a great selling game system if they can make it affordable. Im sure the systems in the malls cost many thousands though. Arcades might be a great place for it.
