Israel Digital News

Web community toolbars provider Conduit has raised $8 million from Benchmark Capital. The company will use the funds to upgrade its offering to deliver a complete family of online syndication solutions.

“Conduit's performance has been remarkable. In less than two years, the company's innovative, on-demand delivery model has enabled tens of thousands of web publishers to build and distribute community toolbars to millions of active subscribers worldwide,” said Michael Eisenberg, general partner of Benchmark Capital and Conduit board member.

Conduit's on-demand community toolbar service allows any web publisher to create, promote and maintain a unique, personalized community toolbar reflecting their website without the cost and complexity of custom software. More than 140,000 publishers have joined the Conduit network worldwide, including major brands such as Fox News, Lufthansa, Major League Baseball, Greenpeace, and TechCrunch.

Conduit was founded by Ronen Shilo, the company CEO, Dror Erez, the VP R&D and CTO of Conduit, and Gaby Bilczyk, Conduit VP Product Development. The comapny is privately-held with headquarters in Israel and Redwood Shores, CA.

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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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Mobile games developer Vollee has raised $4 million from BlueRun Ventures and Benchmark Capital. Vollee provides PC-quality games on 3G mobile devices with a development & porting process of less than two weeks.

Vollee solves the key challenges mobile video gaming faces by leveraging the bandwidth available in 3G mobile networks. Vollee's interactive video streaming platform delivers catalog of true PC and console titles with all their 3D graphics, sophisticated AI and deep game play previously unavailable on mobile. Vollee packages the games it licenses from traditional digital content providers and partners with mobile operators to distribute and market the service to 3G subscribers.

Vollee (Game Stream) was found by Yaron Buznach, the company CTO. Prior to founding Vollee he was the CTO and co-founder of Adwise, an online advertisement company. The company interim CEO is Yossi Hasson, a partner at BlueRun Ventures. Peter Larsen, that was the CEO of Enpocket, a pioneer in mobile advertising and community applications, is serving as Vice President for Sales & Marketing. Vollee has offices in Israel, London and the US.

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Zlango, the developer of icon-based language for Web and mobile messaging, has raised $12 million from Benchmark Capital and Accel Partners.

Zlango has created a new icon based language made up of over 200 icons divided into intuitive and memorable categories. Mobile operators in Israel (Pelephone, Orange & Cellcom), Poland (P4) and the Caribbean (bMobile) already offer the icon-based SMS language for their mobile subscribers.

Headquartered in Israel, Zlango is a privately owned company that founded in 2003 by Yoav Lorch, the company CEO.

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Web 2.0 project management software provider Clarizen has closed a $7 million round of financing from Benchmark Capital and Carmel Ventures.

Clarizen is a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution that empowers users to manage projects and programs across teams, organizations, and companies. SaaS enables companies to dramatically improve the overall user experience. It delivers tangible value to customers at a fraction of the cost of full-blown enterprise software, while offering full user flexibility. The company intends to launch its public Beta service in Q1 2007

“Clarizen's innovative solution creates a unique project management environment enabling true team collaboration and the sharing of live knowledge through the use of Web 2.0 communication tools,” explained Avinoam Nowogrodski, CEO of Clarizen.

Clarizen was founded by CEO, Avinoam Nowogrodski, and by EVP R&D, Tanya Epstein, in 2005. Prior to founding Clarizen, both held similar positions at SmarTeam, a provider of collaborative product life cycle management solutions, which Nowogrodski co-founded in 1995.

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Free video sharing portal, MetaCafe, has completed a second financing round, raising $15 million from Benchmark Capital and Excel Partners. The Israeli Web 2.0 video entertainment firm raised $4 million from Benchmark Capital and private investors in its first financial round.

Metacafe, that competes with two largest video sharing websites, YouTube and Google Video, serves over 280 million videos or Media Snacks a month. Established in 2003, Metacafe currently employs more than 50 people with plans to add an additional 20 workers.

In April 2006, YouTube has received $8M in Series B funding from Sequoia Capital. Founded in February 2005, The Company completed an initial $3.5 million in Series A funding from Sequoia Capital in November 2005. YouTube currently delivers more than 40 million video views every day with 35,000 new videos uploaded daily.

In May 2006, Vpod.tv, a Paris and Madrid based online video sharing site, has received $5.1 million in funding fron the French VC firm Innovacom and Jazztel founder Martin Varsavsky. Besides features simialr to what other video sharing sites have, Vpod includes the ability to integrate advertising in videos, a wide variety of output/device formats, and editing tools. Also, the service seems to have a more editorial focus in terms of videos on the site.

The venture capital rush to invest in online video sharing sites is based on the growing advertising spending on internet video. According to the Online Video Advertising report from eMarketer, advertisers will be spending at least $1.5 billion for online video ads by the end of the decade. eMarketer predicts that internet video has the potential to blend several hot marketing elements: paid search, branded entertainment, viral marketing, consumer generated media, behavioral targeting, website site brand marketing and online gaming.

Last month NBC and YouTube announced a strategic partnership that will combine NBC's quality programming with YouTube's vast audience to enhance the entertainment experience on YouTube while engaging viewers in innovative new ways to promote NBC's Fall program lineup and other preferred shows over the next year.

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