• by Shankar Gupta , November 8, 2005

In-game advertising firm Double Fusion Monday announced it had hired Geoff Graber, the former general manager of Yahoo! Games, as its CEO. The company, which intends to soon move its headquarters to New York City from Jerusalem, also announced that it had closed a $10 million financing round led by Accel Partners and Jerusalem Venture Partners.

Graber said the company hopes to help marketers capture the 18-34 male demographic that increasingly spends less time watching TV and more time with other media, including video games. "The traditional advertising model no longer effectively captures the 18- to-34-year-old male demographic," he said. "Marketers see this and are shifting portions of their ad budgets into 'non-traditional' platforms--including video gaming."

Unlike rival Massive Incorporated--which focuses on inserting ads into games by major publishers--Double Fusion intends to work with major publishers as well as makers of short-form casual games, like those Graber oversaw at Yahoo! Games. "There are opportunities in both areas," Graber said. "There's very clearly an interest from brand game publishers to leverage their games, but there's also a very good target market in the demographic for casual games as well.

Graber added that Double Fusion would "soon" announce new agreements with game publishers, but would not disclose which ones.

In addition to leading Yahoo!'s video game division, Graber also previously headed up Electronic Arts' operations in China.