Spam is one thing, but who wouldn't want an e-mail game to pop up each day before the cubicle walls start closing in? With a cash infusion totaling $1.5 million from the Alley's own LaunchCenter 39 and Denver based InfoBeat, e-mail gaming company LetsPlay hopes to bump up its marketing campaign to trigger game competition across the Internet.

"We've developed the technology to play games via e-mail," said Jed Weissberg, chief executive officer of LetsPlay. "Everytime you move a checker an e-mail is sent to your friend and they make a move and an e-mail is sent to you."

As part of its marketing strategy, LetsPlay sends a fresh marketing message with each new move thereby advertising to two people instead of one. Although LaunchCenter 39 would not reveal how much it invested co-founder Albert Wenger said his company decided to finance the company because email provides a universal platform for communication. LaunchCenter 39 steers investments to financial services and marketing as well as to companies that utilize aspects of the Internet and communication.

Through its partnership with content provider InfoBeat, LetsPlay acquired about 2.5 million subscribers from InfoBeat's rooster of users. In the future, both companies expect the technology behind the games to solicit new email marketing and advertising tools.

"Our partnership with LetsPlay provides InfoBeat with an important, proprietary email game technology that will benefit our subscribers through applications that expand over time," said Mark Wachen, senior vice president and general manager of InfoBeat. The initial series of games will include LetsPlay's versions of trivia and popular role playing game dungeons and dragons.