Jafco Ventures Leads Investment in Gift Card Exchange;

Company on Track to Transact in More than $10 Million in Gift Card Value in 2010

SAN JOSE, Calif. — November 18, 2010 – Plastic Jungle, the web’s largest secured gift card exchange, today announced that it has closed on $10 million in Series C financing. Jafco Ventures is leading the third round of investment, along with returning investors Shasta Ventures, Redpoint Ventures, Bay Partners, and First Round Capital. Plastic Jungle will use the funding to continue its work to unlock the estimated $30 billion in unredeemed gift cards trapped in the economy for the benefit of consumers and retailers alike.

“We’ve built tremendous trust with our customers by operating the most efficient marketplace for unredeemed gift cards, and developing unparalleled payment applications allowing consumers to buy, sell, and exchange gift cards,” said CEO of Plastic Jungle Bruce Bower. “We continue to prove that the Plastic Jungle team is second to none when it comes to understanding the gift card market.”

With a team comprised of former eBay, PayPal, Google, First Data and Blackhawk executives, Plastic Jungle expects to transact more than $10 million in gift card value in 2010, making it the largest marketplace to buy, sell and donate unredeemed gift cards.

Bruce added, “While we weren’t actively seeking to raise additional capital, we seized on the opportunity to solidify our market leadership, accelerate our growth and continue innovating patent-pending solutions aimed at benefiting the aligned interests of our merchant partners and our consumers.”

Through the Plastic Jungle marketplace and its proprietary payments applications, users can sell unredeemed gift cards for up to 92% of the verified gift card balance or buy gift cards to their favorite stores at up to 30% off, allowing consumers to get extra mileage out of every purchase and become all-around savvier shoppers. Plastic Jungle also connects merchants with their best customers, moving idle gift card balances into the hands of their most motivated consumers. Plastic Jungle’s payment applications also allow consumers to convert unredeemed gift cards into purchasing power at e-commerce, social gaming, and other online merchants.

In conjunction with the new funding, Jeb Miller, General Partner of Jafco Ventures, will join the Plastic Jungle Board of Directors.

“Plastic Jungle is doing incredible things to revolutionize the gift card and alternative payments industries, and we look forward to applying the full resources of the Jafco platform to help the company further accelerate its growth,” said Jeb Miller. “They have already established themselves as the clear winner in this emerging space, continuing to develop new and innovative gift card applications, and we believe the combination of their vision and expertise will define the field far into the future.”

“This Series C financing marks another step in Plastic Jungle’s significant growth and our efforts to bring liquidity to the unredeemed gift card economy,” said Tod Francis, Managing Director of Shasta Ventures. “Not only has Plastic Jungle delivered on the vision they laid out when we first invested in the company, but they’re constantly innovating solutions to create a gift card marketplace with vastly greater flexibility and efficiency. We’re very much looking forward to working with Jeb and Jafco to help Plastic Jungle reach the next level.”

Read the press release on Marketwire:  Plastic Jungle Closes on $10 Million in Financing to Accelerate Growth

About Plastic Jungle

Plastic Jungle (www.plasticjungle.com) is the web’s largest secured gift card exchange, giving consumers the choice and flexibility to convert their gift cards into other forms of spending power — including cash, online balances to use for purchases at the millions of merchants that accept PayPal, Facebook Credits, and more — and to stretch their shopping dollars at their favorite merchants.  Plastic Jungle’s patent-pending marketplace and payment applications aim to safely unlock the estimated $30 billion in unredeemed gift cards trapped in the economy for the benefit of consumers and merchants alike. Based in San Jose, California, the company is privately held, with venture backing from Shasta Ventures, Redpoint Ventures, Jafco Ventures, First Round Capital, Bay Partners, Harrison Metal and Western Technology Investment.

Earlier today, we announced the launch of a new virtual currency exchange with Offerpal Media (the leader in virtual currency payment alternatives).  You can now trade in gift cards for purchasing power within thousands of the Web’s top online games, virtual worlds and social networks on Offerpal’s new site, GamePoints.com (currently in beta – congrats Offerpal!!).  Visit GamePoints.com/tradein to check it out.

Offerpal will also reward you with virtual currency when you shop at big-brand retailers, take part in offers from trusted advertisers, complete market research surveys, watch online videos, and so on – learn more in Offerpal’s announcement.

At launch, you will be able to exchange your gift cards in for Game Points that can be used on participating gaming applications such as Zynga’s FarmVille, YoVille, Zynga Poker, Mafia Wars, Cafe World, PetVille, FishVille, Vampire Wars and others; Playdom’s Mobsters, Sorority Life, Social City, Tiki Resort and others; Digital Chocolate’s MMA Pro Fighter; HitGrab’s Mousehunt; TheBroth’s Barn Buddy; Tall Tree Game’s Fish World; K-Factor Media’s Castle Age; Tree Room’s My Town; Apps-O-Rama’s Car Madness; Offbeat Creations’ Be a Tycoon; BitRhymes’ The Warlords; Five Minutes’ Happy Farm; and many others.

During the beta program, Game Points can be spent in gaming applications on Facebook; after the general release Game Points will be able to be spent in games on MySpace, Bebo, Hi5 and other social networks as well as standalone MMO and virtual world sites.

“Plastic Jungle excels at helping people exchange gift cards for whatever it is they really want,” said George Garrick, CEO of Offerpal Media. “Our collaboration brings social gamers yet another way to access virtual currency on the games, applications, and sites they love.”

Our very own Gary (CEO) said, “Plastic Jungle frees trapped money in the form of unspent gift cards and allows it to start moving again. Working with Offerpal, a leader in virtual currency monetization, further taps the unredeemed gift card economy for the benefit of game developers and social publishers and their consumers. We are excited to provide a useful solution for millions of passionate, engaged, and motivated social gamers and the gift cards they have tucked away in their sock drawers.”

What’s your favorite gaming app?

I had the opportunity to attend and present at the Future of Money & Technology Summit today in San Francisco.  There has been a lot of innovation regarding how money moves over the past few years.  Certainly well known is the growth of PayPal.  I used to work there (as well as eBay) and saw first-hand how consumers have learned how they can move money more easily — to an email account or to a debit card or across to a friend’s phone.

Now even more companies are emerging to really change how money moves.  A great overview of this trend was covered in a feature story in Wired magazine a month or so back.  With Intuit’s recent acquisition of Mint and American Express’ acquisition of Revolution Money, there is an increased understanding that consumers are responding to new tools that help them save money and reach their goals.

At Plastic Jungle, we announced a new capability that creates the ability for a consumer to use a retailer’s gift card in another retailer’s online store.  Our Payment Product enables you to use the gift cards you aren’t planning to spend (or just haven’t been spending) and buy something you want.  Have a gift card to a bookstore and want to buy a cell phone instead?  You will be able to trade in your bookstore gift card and use it like a coupon on the website of the cell phone retailer.  Your bookstore gift card then comes in to Plastic Jungle where we then re-sell it to another user.  Therefore, the bookstore owner still gets a user coming to their store.  We just get this money moving again.

This news follows Facebook featuring Plastic Jungle at their f8 conference last week.  Plastic Jungle will be an early way for you to earn Facebook Credits when Facebook launches App2User.

Getting this currently trapped money moving again is something we are excited about.  We, like a few new companies, see the opportunity to help consumers save and buy in new ways.  We’re excited to bring this new service to retailers, social networks and social gaming companies.  It’s all part of the future of money – and our present – at Plastic Jungle.