Quigo, a serious alternative for Google's Ad-Sense, Preparing for IPO

Source: Paidcontent.org

Globes Online reports that Quigo, the NYC and Israel based online contextual ad technology provider, is preparing for a Nasdaq IPO in early 2008.

Quigo has raised $30 million from Institutional Venture Partners, at a company value of $250 million, as part of the preparations for the offering, it says. It closed a $5 million first round in 2004.

By providing a real alternative to Google's ad product, Quigo has earned a place amongst publishing giants such as ESPN.com, Forbes.com, ABCNews.com Time Inc, using a custom-version of Quigo's service across their site portfolio. Time and Quigo estimate ad revenues through this cooperation to be over $100 million in the first three years of the partnership.

The company's flagship product, Ad Sonar is a content-targeted advertising network that connects publishers and advertisers through an auction-based, pay-per-click marketing platform. Using Ad sonar advertisers can see the specific pages on which their ads will appear – usually on the best, most popular sites in their category. The product has been making steady gains in the contextual ad market since 2005.

Quigo was co-founded by Yaron Galai, now the company's Senior Vice President and Oded Itzhak, who developed the propietary technologies.

Below is a recent two-part interview with Michael Yavonditte, Quigo's CEO, courtesy of webmasterworld.com:
Part 1:


Part 2:

KnockaTV Raises $1M

KnockaTV , an Israeli startup founded by former Mirabilis ICQ employees, is developing a product that will connect the Internet and TV in a "Do it Yourself" fashion. KnocaTV was formerly known as ISeeU and is led by co-founder and CEO, Nir Erlich.

Israeli VC firm Evergreen made the investment, placing their second major internet investment in Israel this year. Managing Partner Erez Shachar and investment manager Tomer Afek recently gave an interview on their Internet invesment strategy.

From the interview:

What is it that makes the Internet model different from those in other fields?

"In Internet you have to move fast. Until now the Israeli venture capital market would assess a company over three months and only then decide whether or not to invest $3 million. There's no need for a sum like this in an Internet company, and one needs to move a lot faster. To this end, entities have been set up throughout the world, and recently in Israel as well, which operate in a way suited to Internet companies and not semiconductor companies, for example. This means faster tracks, such as Quick Start, an Internet track operated by US venture capital fund Charles River Ventures that makes small investments in many companies."

UPDATE: TechCrunch posted about Knocka TV today. See coverage here.

Ceedo recieves an undisclosed investment from Intel Capital

Intel Capital, Intel's investment group, invested an undisclosed sum in Ceedo Technologies, a privately held software company.

The Israel-based company said it would use the investment to:

'further establish its position as a leader in personal working environment software for consumer portable storage devices, and accelerate its growth into the corporate and business market segments'.

Ceedo's virtualization technology enables running Windows applications from external physical or network drives without requiring installation on the host PC. It allows users to carry their programs, documents, e-mails and favorite browser with them, accessing them through an easy-access menu once connected to a computer. In other words - Ceedo Personal enables users to access all the PC programs - on the go. (Ceedo Personal is available for a free trial through this link.)

Ceedo was founded in 2005 by Dror Wettenstein (currently serves as CTO) and is led by Dror Sofer, the former COO of XACCT Technologies.

Google Office Launch in Israel

Small item from Google Blogoscoped. David Hetfield reports on Google's Tel Aviv office innaguration on June 4th.

Worth noting: "Why Israel?"

• Highest density of computer science talent worldwide
• Fantastic Universities
• Build local market understanding
• Fast moving enterepreneurial business environment
• Great local partners...and more.
  

Google is not alone in the holy land. Israel has been known for several years as "Silicon Valley of the middle east" and for a good reason. The Israeli high-tech industry is growing fast, both in technological achievements and in sales. Intel, Microsoft, Mercury, Amdox, Texas Instruments and many more are already there.