02/26/2008
Blogs rating platform developer Outbrain raised $5 million from Gemini, Lightspeed and GlenRock
Blogs rating platform developer Outbrain has closed a $5 million investment round from Gemini Israel Funds, Lightspeed Venture Partners and GlenRock Israel.
Outbrain is a platform for ratings and recommendations of blog, news content websites and RSS feeds . Bloggers and digital publishers can use Outbrain's free widget or API to provide readers with rating functionality and personalized reading recommendations. Thousands of blogs have already installed the Outbrain widget, which support most leading blogging and RSS platforms, such as Blogger, TypePad, WordPress, Drupal, and FeedFlare.
Outbrain was founded in 2006 by Yaron Galai, Co-Founder of Quigo which was recently acquired by AOL, and Ori Lahav who previously headed R&D teams at Shopping.com. Outbrain is headquartered in New York City, with its R&D based in Israel.
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10:30 Posted in Web 2.0 | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this | Tags: Blogs rating, RSS platforms, Outbrain, Yaron Galai, AOL, Quigo, Ori Lahav
11/12/2007
AOL has acquired Web 2.0 Q&A platform provider Yedda
Global Web services company AOL has acquired the Web 2.0 search based Questions and Answer platform provider Yedda. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. The Israeli startup will operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of AOL.
AOL will incorporate Yedda's platform into select programming areas on AOL.com. "Incorporating Yedda's unique technology into AOL enables us to bring together our traditional search resources and an entire community of people to help users quickly find answers to questions," said Ron Grant, President and COO of AOL.
Yedda employs patent-pending technology that automatically matches questions to other related questions and topics, while selecting the best available users to answer the question. Yedda helps publishers and content websites to enhance user engagement and overall user loyalty, improve monetization, and increase search engine visibility through promoting their sites as knowledge communities.
Yedda was founded in 2006 by Avichay Nissenbaum, Yedda CEO and Yaniv Golan, the company CTO. Yedda’s R&D center, which currently employs approximately 20 people, will continue to be based in Israel. Yedda has raised $2.5 million from Israeli venture fund Genesis Partners and private investors.
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09:39 Posted in Web 2.0 | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this | Tags: AOL, Avichay Nissenbaum, Yedda, Web 2.0, search engine, Questions and Answer platform, Genesis Partners
10/02/2007
Ingenious Media Active Capital invested $3.2 million in Sportingo
Ingenious Media Active Capital (IMAC) has completed a $3.2 million investment in Sportingo, a user-generated content sport website for sports fans.
''Sportingo is a progressive media company which is well positioned to benefit from the rise in user-generated content, social networking and the take-off of broadband video,” said Patrick McKenna, Director of IMAC. “Our investment will allow Sportingo to grow its already significant user base and to begin monetising this highly attractive and 'sticky' audience.''
Officially launched in February 2007, Sportingo is an online community which allows them to publish articles and access sports related information such as news, statistics and guides to sports related video content available online.
In June 2007 Sportingo completed the acquisition of CaughtOffside.com, one of the UK's most popular football blogs. The Sportingo network has since grown in popularity to serve more than 550,000 monthly unique users.
IMAC is a UK investment company which aims to provide investors with capital growth from equity or equity related investments in predominantly unquoted media and entertainment companies.
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17:40 Posted in Web 2.0 | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this | Tags: Web 2.0, user-generated content, sport, Ingenious Media Active Capital
03/26/2007
Web 2.0 payout solutions provider Payoneer secured $4 million
Web 2.0 payout solutions provider Payoneer has secured $4 million in Series A venture funding led by Greylock Partners. All earlier investors participated in the current round including Crossbar Capital and several angel investors. The new funding will Lets Payoneer tap explosive demand for faster and easier global payments for businesses In the Web 2.0 economy.
Payoneer offers outsourced Web payout solutions using prepaid debit MasterCard, wire transfers and e-checks. Payoneer’s prepaid debit cards are accepted at any store or ATM worldwide that accepts MasterCard. Payoneer has gained dozens of customers – including affiliate networks, bloggers, video and music sites, Internet payment service processors (IPSPs) in the 9 months since its service was introduced.
"The Internet payout space may well become a killer application in the next few years as Internet companies transition to smarter ways to pay out their partners around the globe,” said Moshe Mor, partner at Greylock Partners. "Payoneer’s team has deep payments experience, and an already impressive track rate of customer adoption and solutions.”
Payoneer was founded in 2005 by Yuval Tal, Payoneer CEO. Previously Tal served as the CEO of E4X, a provider of services that facilitate global business by reducing complexities relating to cross border sales and payments, from September 1999 until February 2005. Payoneer is based in New York, and maintains its R&D center in Tel Aviv.
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17:50 Posted in Web 2.0 | Permalink | Comments (1) | Email this | Tags: Web 2.0, payout, prepaid debit MasterCard, Payoneer
03/22/2007
Global venture capital investment in Web 2.0 companies jumped to $844 million in 2006
Venture capitalists continued to favor the innovative activity of Web 2.0 companies last year, as $844.4 million was directed into 167 deals in 2006, more than twice as much money and nearly twice as many deals as occurred in 2005. According to new research by Ernst & Young/Dow Jones VentureOne Data.
Most of the growth remains centered in companies based in the US and Europe. The US dominated the Web 2.0 market, with 126 deals and $682.7 million invested, an 83% increase in deals from 2005 and a 136% increase in capital. San Francisco Bay Area was the busiest region in the US for Web 2.0 deals and was home to more than half of all financings in 2006.
Venture capital funds invested $100.5 million in 20 European Web 2.0 startups in 2006, up from four deals in 2005. The amount invested in Europe is more than a 200% increase from 2005. China posted 21 Web 2.0 deals, the same number that occurred in China in 2005. Investment declined by 26% to US$61.3 million.
Israel had two venture-financed Web 2.0 deals in 2006 and $22 million invested, a jump from one deal and only $1 million invested the year before. In July 2006, the Israeli Web 2.0 video entertainment firm, MetaCafe, has completed a second financing round, raising $15 million from Benchmark Capital and Excel Partners. In December 2006, enterprise-grade project management services provider Clarizen closed a $7 million round of financing from Benchmark Capital and Carmel Ventures. The research did not include the $2 million funding round of social content sharing company eSnips from Greylock Partners and Gemini Israel Funds.
"Web 2.0 is certainly a very fast-growing segment of the overall venture capital market right now. However, based on the median size of Web 2.0 deals and the conservative level of pre-money valuations for these companies, the data does not indicate that we are entering bubble territory," said Stephen Harmston, Director of Global Research for VentureOne. "Rather, what we are seeing is robust investment activity aimed at a still emerging business area."
The median pre-money valuation for a Web 2.0 company in 2006 was $6 million for both US based companies and worldwide. The median size of a Web 2.0 deal on a global basis was $5 million in 2006, an increase from the $3.3 million median the year before. The median size of a financing round was also $5 million in the US and China, but was actually higher in Europe last year at $6 million.
"The Internet has impacted every sector from media to retail to hospitality and consumer products. Now through Web 2.0 offerings, the Internet is having a profound influence on the way we share, collaborate and interact socially, not just in developed markets but also in fast growing emerging markets," indicated Gil Forer, Global Director of Ernst & Young's Venture Capital Advisory Group. "From the investor perspective, the low capital requirements, potential high return and the faster time from development to revenue are the primary drivers of the increase in venture capital investment in the Web 2.0 segment. In addition, success stories such as YouTube have had a positive impact both on entrepreneurs and investors."
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15:00 Posted in Web 2.0 | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this | Tags: Web 2.0, Venture Cpaital, Israel, US, China, Internet, YouTube
03/13/2007
Sportingo, Infogin and Oversi selected as the most promising startups in Israel for 2007
Sportingo, Infogin and Oversi were selected as the three most promising internet startup companies in Israel for 2007 in competition hosted by TheMarker and Microsoft. Each company will get to present its vision in front of an international panel of judges as part of a major technology event hosted by TheMarker next Sunday.
Founded in 2006 by Ze’ev Rozov and Tal Barnoach, Sportingo has created a new and dynamic sport news community designed by fans for fans, by building an online media platform for discussions, opinions, latest news, results and fan conversations about all sports.
Sportingo will soon be launching an interactive media guide that will enable user to search, browse and connect with the best online sports videos and audio. This comprehensive guide will make it easy for you to find quality online coverage of user’s favorite sporting events including English league football, Cricket, Rugby Union and Rugby League, Tennis, Golf, Motor sports and Cycling.
InfoGin is a leading pioneer in the field of Web to mobile content adaptation, enabling real-time optimal reformatting of content without compromising its richness and functionality.
Oversi offers innovative solutions for P2P networks in today's fast-growing Internet TV and video age. Oversi's solutions enable ISPs to optimize their network performance, ease P2P traffic pressure and save on bandwidth.
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14:55 Posted in Web 2.0 | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this | Tags: Sportingo, Infogin, Oversi, internet startups, TheMarker, Microsoft Israel, Ze’ev Rozov
12/05/2006
Web 2.0 project management software provider Clarizen Secures $7 Million
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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09:55 Posted in Web 2.0 | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this | Tags: Web 2.0, project management software, Avinoam Nowogrodski, Benchmark Capital, Carmel Ventures, Tanya Epstein
09/27/2006
Sportingo launches consumer-generated content sport website
Sportingo has launched a new consumer-generated content sport website. The Web 2.0 new media platform enables sports fans around the world to share their opinions online about all sports.
“Sportingo is a new platform for sport fans to share their opinion about the sports they care about,” explains CEO Ze’ev Rozov. “Any sport fan that currently writes a blog, participates in an online forum or a fun site can take their writing to the next level and be part of an exciting and dynamic sport desk."
Sportingo launched its coverage with football (soccer) and tennis and will be adding more sports over the next few months. Located in Herzeliya, Israel, Sportingo is planning to begin broadcasting live sporting events through partnerships with leading sport organizations around the world.
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15:10 Posted in Web 2.0 | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this | Tags: consumer-generated content, sport, Web 2.0, Sportingo, Football