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How to Get Funding? Act Like You Don't Need It Vungle, a mobile advertising startup, makes trailers for apps and had investors fighting get in on the action.

By Gwen Moran

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Here's one way to raise more money in a seed round: Say, "No thanks." That's what Zain Jaffer and Jack Smith, founders of the Vungle mobile ad platform, did when a bevy of heavyweight investors clamored to get a piece of their company as it exited the hot San Francisco incubator AngelPad.

The two say they weren't initially interested in securing funding; they didn't want to deal with the pressure of fighting for control with investors. But as tech luminaries like Google Ventures, AOL Ventures, Crosslink Capital and angel investors SoftTech VC, SV Angel, 500 Startups and Tim Draper started knocking on their door, it was tough to turn down the cash. They closed on $2 million in January.

"When we said we didn't have any more room for investors, they thought it was a bluffing tactic, so they pushed slightly harder," says Smith, who moved with Jaffer from London in 2011 to take part in AngelPad. They launched Vungle in beta this year.