Estimated Value: $80 million
Business: An advertising company that offers discounts or free products to online shoppers in exchange for trying a client's product or service.
Location: Mountain View, California
More Info: About Trialpay
CEO: Alex Rampell
Investors: Atomico, Battery Ventures, Index Ventures, Baseline Ventures, Bob Pittman, and several other individual investors.
Analysis: TrialPay is best explained by an example. If someone fills a shopping cart at an ecommerce site, they might get a pop-up offering something in their cart for free--in exchange for signing up for promotions from a TrialPay client company. The idea behind the service is that everybody wins: the customer gets free goods, the retailer gets a kickback from the promotion company, and the company promoting its services gets a customer.
TrialPay was started in 2003 has raised over $15 million. 2,500 merchants use Trialpay, and the service is reportedly adding 10 new merchants a day. In August 2007, The Wall Street Journal reported that the company is losing money, has 50 employees, and generates $10 million in annual revenue.
We estimate that TrialPay might generate $15 million in revenue in 2008. We value the company at about $80 million.