• February 18, 2009

Social media advertising company Offerpal Media has closed $15 million in a second-round venture financing led by D. E. Shaw Ventures and including existing investors InterWest Partners and North Bridge Venture Partners.

The Fremont, Calif.-based company previously raised $4.6 million from the same investors. Offerpal plans to use the funding to expand its platform for monetizing social applications and games and to create more tools for driving e-commerce around virtual goods. Its system allows social Web users to earn virtual currency in return for signing up for offers from advertisers such as The Gap, BlockBuster and eBay.

The company's Managed Offer Platform can be embedded in any social application or site by inserting a small piece of code.

Started in 2007, Offerpal now boasts more than 2,000 ad offers in its system and works with more than 850 social Web publishers including Facebook, Bebo and hi5. It also facilitates in-game transactions on sites such as WeeWorld, Acclaim Games and Aeria Games. On the mobile side, Offerpal recently announced a version of its platform for iPhone applications.--Mark Walsh