London-based ad tech firm Future Ad Labs rebrands as Adludio

Future Ad Labs is no more – at least not under its old name.

On November 14, the mobile ad unit provider told The Next Web exclusively that it has rebranded as Adludio. Howard Kingston*, co-founder and CMO, says the company is also globally launching PlayRoll, a new product to replace pre-roll video advertising through gesture-based video interaction.

The roll-out of PlayRoll follows £500k ($775,000 USD) raised through Seedrs this past summer. That success saw London-based Adludio become the first company to use a crowdfunding platform to raise a convertible round.

“Adludio means ‘to play’ in Latin,” Kingston told TNW. ”We’re rebranding because we felt we wanted a new name that better reflected the values and mission of the business, which is to make people’s lives better by replacing frustrating online experiences with enjoyable ones. We have vision to put smiles on one billion faces through better brand experiences, and we felt our new name reflects this as we expand globally.”

According to Adludio’s website, PlayRoll “… guarantees brand engagement through an enjoyable interactive experience” – rather than users skipping pre-loaded adverts.

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Adludio is also rolling out a self-serve ability for brands and advertisers to create their own PlayCaptcha and PlayRoll ad formats. Although he couldn’t disclose numbers, Kingston promises that Adludio will produce multi-million dollar revenues in 2015.

Including its convertible round, Adludio has raised $1.75 million to date. Brands including Nestle, Heinz, BBC and Unilever all use Adludio’s PlayCaptcha to spice up Web security protocol. A third product, PlayUnlock, will launch later this quarter.