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05/31/2007
Animated avatars provider Gizmoz secured $6.3 million from Benchmark and Columbia Capital
3D animated avatars provider Gizmoz has secured $6.3 million Series A investment from Benchmark Capital and Columbia Capital. The Israeli company also unveiled today new free tools that allow consumers to showcase their customized characters.
Gizmoz new online digital identity service allows consumers to create animated, talking characters for use across their digital communications. The 3D talking characters can be used to generate video clips and other forms of original content and can be posted to any blog or social networking profile, sent via email to family and friends, or uploaded to video sites.
"With an expertise in global communications and media, we recognize the importance consumers place on personalization and self-expression," said Arun Gupta, partner at Columbia Capital. "As consumers spend more time online and on the go, they are looking for more creative, interactive ways to communicate and share with others. Gizmoz provides the ultimate in digital identity personalization, and we believe its disruptive technology holds tremendous global opportunities going forward."
Gizmos offers consumers a new generation of character-based visual expression for use across their digital lives. Gizmos, formerly known as Zapa Digital Arts, was Founded in 1996 by Eyal Gever, the company current CEO. The company has offices in Menlo Park, CA and Ramat Gan, Israel.
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19:40 Posted in Digital Messaging | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this | Tags: 3D animated avatars, online digital identity, Eyal Gever, Zapa Digital Arts, blog, social networking, Benchmark Capital
05/25/2007
5min won second place in European Startup 2.0 contest
Israeli instructional video sharing startup 5min won second place in the European Startup 2.0 contest. Sclipo, a social skills network based upon user generated videos, has won the first competition of the most promising web 2.0 sites in Europe for 2007. Properazzi, a crawler based web 2.0 property search engine, won the third prize.
Startup 2.0 was opened to web 2.0 startups from all Europe. A total of 260 projects coming from the main European countries took part in it. The 5 finalists presented their projects yesterday at the Guggenheim Museum of Bilbao, Spain.
5min intent to create the first communal Life Videopedia allowing users worldwide to contribute their knowledge by sharing visual guides in areas such as arts, business, fashion, sports, health, tech, food. Earlier this month, 5min releases a unique embedded version of its instructional video player. The Smart Player was designed specifically to enhance the viewing experience of instructional short video clips.
5min is an instructional video site that was founded by three Israeli entrepreneurs: Ran Harnevo, Hanan Lashover and Tal Simantov. The company, located in Or Yehuda, has raised $0.3 million from Israeli angel investors.
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14:25 Posted in Video Sharing | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this | Tags: 5min, Web 2.0, Properazzi, Sclipo, Videopedia, Ran Harnevo, Hanan Lashover
05/15/2007
Desktop virtualization software provider Ceedo secures funding from Intel Capital
Ceedo Technologies, a provider of desktop virtualization software for portable storage devices, secures funding from Intel Capital, in a private financing round. Ceedo's virtualization technology enables running Windows applications from external physical or network drives without requiring installation on the host PC.
"We share Ceedo's vision of turning portable storage from a medium for carrying files to a medium for mobilizing the user's digital lifestyle," said Joel Fisch, investment manager at Intel Capital Israel. "The demand for stand-alone storage devices and for consumer electronic devices with embedded storage, such as cell phones and personal media players, creates a need for smart storage solutions that enable portability and mobility."
Ceedo Personal, the company's flagship product based on its virtualization technology, enables users to carry, access and utilize their digital lifestyles on any PC and has been licensed to major USB Flash Drive and Hard Disk Drive vendors including Lexar, Maxell, Verbatim and Pleomax (Samsung).
"This funding from Intel Capital will dramatically advance our vision of creating a de-facto standard and high-value solutions for portable working environments in the consumer, corporate and business market segments," says Dror Sofer, CEO of Ceedo. "Ceedo's offering in these market segments allows users to enjoy a truly portable lifestyle where their digital identity, including media files, settings, preferences and applications, is carried with them in an easy-to-use, yet highly private way."
Ceedo was founded in 2005 by Dror Wettenstein, the company CTO. Wettenstein was the Co-Founder of Multimedia Kid and held the position of VP of Research and Development for 11 years. Ceedo headquartered and R&D center are located in Petach Tikva, israel.
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10:15 Posted in Desktop Applications | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this | Tags: Ceedo Technologies, Dror Wettenstein, Dror Sofer, virtualization software, portable storage devices, Intel Capital Israel, USB Flash Drive
05/08/2007
P2P file sharing solutions provider BeInSync debuts free online backup service
Peer to Peer (P2P) file sharing solutions provider BeInSync unveils free software to sync, share, access and backup any type of digital content. The new BeInSync version 3.0 allow user to synchronize documents, photos, videos and music across all home, office and notebook computers and to share and backup large amounts of files, instantly via web interface.
BeInSync leverages the Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) from Amazon Web Services as the solution's underlying infrastructure to provide its users with up to 1GB of highly reliable performance and available storage.
"With over four million downloads, this new product release is a major milestone for BeInSync, and incorporates feedback received from our user community," said Motti Vaknin, CEO of BeInSync. "Consumers and small businesses need a complete solution for their data that is simple, automatic and secure. By launching this comprehensive data solution, we provide a full-featured product with sync, share, access and all new backup."
Based on patent-pending secure private peer-to-peer (P2P) technology, BeInSync creates private data networks that make it easy to stay connected and always in sync with colleagues, friends, remote files and computers. Privately held, BeInSync is venture capital backed and headquartered in Tel Aviv, Israel with offices in San Jose, California.
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19:50 Posted in Online Backup | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this | Tags: file sharing, online backup, photos, videos, Storage, Amazon S3, BeInSync
Database security software provider Sentrigo secured $3.5 million from Benchmark Capital
Database security software provider Sentrigo has secured $3.5 million in Series A financing from Benchmark Capital. Sentrigo is using the funds to develop and market software designed to help enterprise customers combat unauthorized database activities originating from privileged company insiders, as well as from those outside the organization.
Sentrigo provides security software that monitors all database activity and protects sensitive information in real time in order to prevent both internal and external data breaches. Sentrigo’s product is in use by early access customers in the banking, telecommunications, government, travel, managed IT services and healthcare sectors and will be generally available later this quarter.
“Database breaches are becoming more frequent and more severe,” said Nathan Shuchami, Sentrigo CEO. “Policies, procedures and existing technologies do not sufficiently protect sensitive data against breaches, especially those linked to highly skilled insiders with access privileges.”
Sentrigo was founded in 2006 by Shuchami, which held in the past a senior management positions at Blue Security, an anti-spam solution provider and Enigma, an enterprise software provider. The Israeli startup North America headquarters is located in Woburn, Massachusetts and the R&D center situated in Kfar Saba, Israel.
18:15 Posted in Database Security | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this | Tags: Database security software, Sentrigoת Benchmark Capital, Nathan Shuchami, Blue Security, anti-spam solution, Enigma