App discovery company Tapjoy announced its US$30 million Series D funding round, stating that it will use the cash to “accelerate its innovative product technology roadmap, expand its direct advertiser relationships, broaden its services, and aggressively pursue new opportunities.” In a statement, it said that in the last year it has “experienced rapid growth and expansion as mobile application developers, advertisers and consumers embrace its technology and the Tapjoy model for the discovery, distribution and monetisation of mobile applications.” However, it has not had a clear run: Tapjoy is best known for its incentivised download services, which subsequently fell foul of Apple’s App Store guidelines – closing off a lucrative revenue stream.

According to Mihir Shah, president and CEO of Tapjoy: “It is a strong vote of confidence in our technology, our people and the Tapjoy model. Our products deliver value to all parties within the mobile ecosystem by promoting the right mobile application to the right consumer at the right time. We enable developers to create innovative content that is able to get discovered, while also allowing advertisers to engage with the largest targeted mobile audience across Android, iOS, WP7 and HTML5 apps.”

Last month, Tapjoy announced a US$5 million fund to help developers port selected apps to Android, which was seen as the company looking to bolster its position beyond the Apple-controlled ecosystem. Shah also noted that pay-per-install is not its only offering, having previously stated that it is still “making good money” from the Apple platform.
The latest round was led by new investors advised by JP Morgan Asset Management, and included “major existing investors Rho Ventures, North Bridge Venture Partners, InterWest Partners and DE Shaw Ventures. It comes six months after Tapjoy raised US$21 million, which took its total at that point past US$40 million.

The current Tapjoy grew out of Offerpal Media, a company offering monetisation and distribution services for social games. Offerpal previously acquired Tapjoy to boost its presence in the mobile space. In June 2011 it said that it would no longer offer services for web-based applications, in order to focus its attention on mobile.