Halloween Roundup: Google's platform, EasyStart, Ideas08 and more

A few quick bytes of recent news that didn't get their own post on VC Cafe:

1. Open Social, Maka-Maka and Google's Attempt to Bite From the Facebook Pie
   Marc Anderssen of Ning and blog.pmarca (highly recommended read) posted a great summary of the recent API announcement. Ning is participating in the open API initiative, along with hi5, linkedin, plaxo, salesforce, friendster and more. Others companies are taking the same route by opening their platform in a similar fashion, including MySpace, the 800 pound gorilla and the web-based instant messaging platform Meebo.com. The New York Times has the details.
   
   UPDATE: Ning Added a Screen Cast and screenshots of Open Social in action:
   
   Open Social Screen Cast
   
   Find more screencasts like this on Ning Network Creators
   Screenshots
   
   
   
2. eXelate Raises $4M for Delayed-Ad Exchange
   Carmel Ventures financed the round. The Israeli based ad platform eXelate offers a marketplace called the “eXelate Targeting eXchange” which is focused on what they are calling “Delayed-Ads.” eXelate was founded in 2006 by CEO Meir Zohar and CTO Elad Efraim, who were both previously with online ad network Oridian. Roi Carthy and a:c will tell you all about it.
   
   
3. Jamster and innerActive to Trial Mobile In-Game Advertising Service in the UK
   I sometimes get Press Releases forwarded through the blog - this was the most recent one: Jamster, one of the world's leading providers of digital entertainment, able to reach one in six consumers around the globe, and Israel based innerActive Smart Media, a leading provider of innovative ad-funded entertainment channel, have announced today a trial of a new Mobile In-Game Advertising service in the UK. Want to read more? There are plenty of sources...
   
   
4. Easy start will give you 100K to fund your idea - interest free
   The Dan David Foundation, annually awards 3 prizes of US$ 1 million each for achievements having an outstanding scientific, technological, cultural or social impact on our world. In a recent initiative, The Marker and Dan David announced EasyStart - a new - an interest free angel loan of 100K$ for early stage start ups. In return, EasyStart takes 25% of the venture, and will receive 18 monthly installments. In addition, The Marker magazine will provide exposure to the projects, including interviews with the founders. The risk is on them - if the start up fails, the entrepreneur files for chapter 11 and is not required to return a dime. If it works, a year from inception the start up will be entitled for additional grants of up to $120K. To apply, follow this link (Hebrew)
   
   
5. The Israel National Entrepreneurship Competition - Biztec 08
   BizTEC's mission is to be "A League" entrepreneurship competition, providing a framework within Israel that encourages entrepreneurs to act on their innovation and ultimately produce Israel's next generation of successful ventures.
   
   This year BizTEC has added a preliminary stage to the competition. After registration to the BizTEC website, teams will be able to submit a 1 page paper describing the IDEA concept of the venture. Teams are required to show an understanding of the business aspects for a new creative technological IDEA. The upcoming competition starts on November 4th in Israel. Register or submit your idea.
   

The New Million Dollar Page (wannabe) and How I Saved an Alien

It's silly, but what if this crazy idea worked? Save an Alien, an Israeli Facebook app hopes to create the "million dollar page" effect through an extra terrestrial plot. If 10M people adopt an alien each, the cute aliens will be saved from imminent death and this Israeli start up will have 10M subscribers- not bad if you plan to do some targeted marketing. At the time of writing this post, the app had 2,314 daily active users. I predict that this number will grow fast in the coming weeks. As a comparison, according to appsaholic, the leading apps reach up to 1.689,000 daily active users.

So how does Save an Alien work?
The story is simple. Save An Alien is a campaign aimed at saving 10 million unique aliens from certain death by a meteor that's bound to hit on May 1st 2008 (183 days from today and counting).


The solution
10 million humans need to each adopt one alien. All the aliens need to be adopted to be saved

What's so special about these aliens?
Each alien is unique, and after adoption it will be yours. They kind of look like a Tamagotchi. Except that you don't need to feed or play with the alien (its not a pet).
You can walk around planet alien through a flash-like interface, to select the alien that you want to rescue. You can also 'replace' your alien later on.
What can you do with your alien?
Once you adopt an alien you can use its pictures as a desktop wallpaper, cell phone background, IM icon (ICQ, Messanger, Skype) and even print its picture and put it on your desk. If you really like your alien you can buy a custom t-shirt with him on it. As for other revenue generators, the FAQ says it best:

In the future we will add more ways for you to show the alien that you love it, for now we are focused on saving the aliens on the planet.

There's also a social aspect
see your friend's aliens and invite others to take part of the rescue mission. You get points for saving other aliens by inviting people and by filling up your profile and verifying your email.

Did you save an alien already?

Don't Stop Believing - Imagine Communications Scores $15M for Broadband TV

The Broadband TV niche in Israel is on fire. Following RayV's $8M round earlier this month, Israel-based Imagine Communications announced a second round and a hot upcoming deal.

Imagine develops Personalized TV technologies for video on demand (VOD) and Internet Protocol TV (IPTV). Imagine claims that its next-generation multiplexing technology, the QOD Gateway System, provides operators with:

• 50%-100% more streams on existing network infrastructure
  
• Greatly enhanced video quality
  
• Future PersonalizedTV applications such as targeted ads and personalized audio

The platform uses a variable bit rate (VBR) platform. By employing VBR, a technique that changes bit rates on the fly, Imagine believes it can cram 15 standard-definition streams into one QAM channel, versus 10 streams using fixed, constant bit rate (CBR) technology. The efficiency also applies to high-definition television.

Founded in October 2004, Imagine Comm was previously known as QoD (Quality on Demand), the name of its initial product. Imagine previously raised $9.2M from Carmel Ventures II and Columbia Capital back in 2006. In its current round, Imagine Comm is raising $15M from previous backers and according to rumors also from US based Court Square Ventures (CSV). In addition to the financing round, Imagine Communications is also rumored to be on the verge of signing a significant long term partnership with a European communications mogul.

The founders of imagine are both veterans of BigBand Networks, one of Israel's biggest IPOs ever. CTO and Co-founder Ron Gutman, former director of customer solutions at BigBand and SVP of Product Doron Segev, former lead of product and engineering for video apps at Big Band.
In June this year, BigBand filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Imagine Comm, claiming that Imagine's co-founders are infringing three of BigBand's patents on video processing and bandwidth management.

The company is based in Cardiff by the sea, CA and has offices in Israel as well. It currently has a head team of 35.

Shai Agassi Reinvents the Gas Pump for All-Electirc Cars @ Better Place

After almost becoming the CEO of SAP global, Shai Agassi now aims to reinvent 'the pump' - for battery powered all-electric cars.

With a $200M investment in his pocket, Shai Agassi is planning to build a network of battery-charging stations in the US, Europe and emerging markets with his new venture called 'Project Better Place', which already has a head count of ten. The seed round was raised from two funds and a group of private investors. The Israel Corporation, a large Israeli transportation and technology holding company, invested $100 million earlier this year. The rest was invested by Vantage Point Venture Partners, and heavy weight investors Edgar Bronfman Sr., the liquor magnate (Chivas Regal, Crown Royal), and James D. Wolfensohn, former head of the World Bank.

The new system will sell electric fuel on a subscription basis and will subsidize vehicle costs through leases and credits. In a recent interview, Shai said that tests of prototype vehicles would start in early 2008 and the company would begin commercial sales and service in 2010.

Unlike Tesla Motors and other electric-car ventures that focus on the battery itself (performance, life cycle and cost), Shai's venture plans to extend the existing electric-power grids with a wide network of recharging stations in urban areas, that will be supplemented with a smaller number of automated battery-replacement stations.

Shai Agassi, 39, joined SAP in 2001, when it acquired his Israel based company, TopTier software .
Check out the New York Times and WSJ for the rest of the story. To learn more about the project, see the Fact Sheet (Pdf).


Also, see Shai's presentation (requires plugin) by clicking on the image below:

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Goldman Sachs Invested $100M in Israeli Mobileye

Mobileye, a Top100 Innovator according to Red Herring magazine, develops vision systems to prevent imminent accidents by providing drivers with tools such as distance keeping between vehicles, dynamic cruise control and timely warnings in dangerous situations.

Mobileye's main product is its EyeQ vision system chip. The chip monitors the location of other vehicles on the road so that the driver can avoid accidents if other drivers swerve from their lanes or get too close.

GS made the investment based on a $600M valuation. Mobileye has raised about $65 million so far, and its revenues are estimated at $10 million a year. Mobileye was co-founded by Professor Amnon Shashua (Chairman), expert in 3D vision and pattern recognition, and CEO Ziv Aviram. Founded in 1999, the company has a head count of approximately 185 and has its R&D based in Jerusalem as well as sales and marketing offices in the US Cyprus and Japan.

[via Haaretz]

TGIF - Friday Wrap Up and Weekly News

This week was full of tech news that deserve some VC Cafe attention. Here's a short recap on the headlines that didn't get their own post:

Payoneer raises $3M from Greylock partners

Payoneer markets manages and services prepaid MasterCard cards together with the Royal Bank of Scotland and the First Bank of Delaware. Anyone 13 years or older can get a card, by filling out a form online. The fully-functioning debit MasterCards offer web-based businesses issuing co-branded cards, earning different fees ranging from card activations to process fees on money charges. Clients already include Mahsable, odesk and most recently istockphoto.

Greylock Partners Israel invested $3M out of a $4M round. Payoneer was founded in 2005 and has a head count of 25 with offices in New York and Tel-Aviv. Their competitors include WebCertificate, NetSpend and BuyRight.

[via Techcrunch (thanks Roi)]

MySpace Plans to open Israeli branch, looking to hire content manager

The Marker Israel reports that MySpace.com is looking to open offices in Israel. MySpace published a job ad on linked in, looking for a content manager in Israel.

The following position is available at MySpace Israel. The position is demanding and fast paced, requiring an individual who thrives in a start up environment. This position is based in Israel.

[via The Marker and Startup Israel]

Technion Seed - four VC funds partner with Israeli university

The Tehcnion incubator (TEIC) understood that in order to grow successful companies, it will need more funding. The university aims to solve the problem through the creation of a type of incubator - jointly owned by Technion Israel Institute of Technology and four venture capital funds: Vertex Venture Capital, Vitalife Life Sciences Venture, ProSeed Venture Capital Fund and US fund Battery Ventures. Companies accepted to be part of the incubator will recieve funding straight from the VC funds. The Technion Seed Lab is led by Moshe Catzenelson, former CEO of LabOne Innovations Inc..

[via Globes ]

Facebook Israel Network surpases 100K users

Back at the end of June there were about 18,000 people on the Israel Network on Facebook. Following the Von Conference in Israel on October 14th, it grew to 74,000. Since then It has been growing exponentially with now over 100K users. A growth of 33% was recorded in about 9 days. Given that Facebook is an English language platform, as Shel Israel wrote, “that is truly amazing.”
[via Shel Israel, Jeff Pulver]

Terrorists use Google Earth to Find Targets in Israel

Members of Palestine’s al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, a group aligned with the Fatah political party, has admitted to using Google Earth for mapping targets for rocket strikes.
[via Mahsable]

The Grass Can Be Greener - Update on Clean Tech

Earlier this month, Green Tech Media posted a great update byMeir Ukeles of Israel Cleantech Ventures on the growing popularity of Israeli Green Tech companies.

I summarized the main points from this report, but I recommend reading the full article.

• On October 30, Israel will host a cleantech conference cosponsored by the Cleantech Venture Network, Ernst & Young, Morrison & Foerster, and Israel Cleantech Ventures, as part of the larger WATEC water technologies week event.
  
  
• Why is Israel is emerging as an important hub of cleantech innovation?

1. Background: Fueled by acute constraints in natural resources, Israel has spawned a number of successful water technology and alternative energy companies, including recognized names in drip irrigation (Netafim), desalination (IDE), geothermal energy (Ormat), fuel cells (Medis), and solar thermal energy (Solel/Luz).
   
2. Israel’s academic institutions in these areas have led to world class cleantech capabilities and more than 350 active cleantech companies in Israel today.
   
3. The Human Asset: The roots of this growing community of cleantech entrepreneurs can be traced to:
• established or “legacy” industrial companies active in energy, water, chemicals etc.,
• academic institutions with long histories as research leaders in energy and water sciences
  
• “crossover” initiatives or entrepreneurs moving into cleantech from traditional areas of Israeli technology leadership such as power electronics, semiconductors, and even biotech and agritech.
• founders or key members of some of the most recognized names in Israel’s high tech world (Checkpoint, Comverse, Chromatis, Scitex, and many others) now involved in launching cleantech companies.
• Israeli cleantech companies must overcome the same challenges faced by counterparts in other countries, including the challenge of penetrating often risk-averse customers in the energy and water markets, managing cash burn rates against long sales and adoption cycles, etc. However, Israeli companies do operate under some unique constraints, starting with their distance from and historical lack of familiarity with many of the key customers and channel partners for their products and technologies.
• Israel’s most important resource is its entrepreneurs – a seemingly inexhaustible supply of talented business people and technologists who excel at looking beyond traditional ways of solving market problems and inefficiencies.

That, coupled with the truly colossal demand for technologies to address the world’s insatiable need for clean, accessible energy, water and air, is what is already putting Israel on the map as a global cleantech player.

SmartShopper Makes an Exit, Strengthens Zango

Yet another Israeli exit this week. SmartShopper, a browser based comparison shopping engine was acquired by WA based Zango.com for an estimated sum of ~$9M according to alarm:clock and Techcrunch.

A problematic buyer*
Zango has raised $40M from Spectrum Equity in 2004. It is notoriously known in the spyware business for its distribution of free games to MySpace users, that result in the installation of a spyware toolbar that requires user consent before the adware is installed. The toolbar belongs to Hotbar Inc., who is the was once the owner of Smart Shopper.

Zango states in its website that "Zango does not collect or share any information about you with anyone", but the company is entangled in several court challenges from privacy groups on its marketing tactics and policies. Services like McAfee Site Advisor
confirm the suspicion in their reports. User reviews show Zango as enabler of spam, spyware and even phishing attempts. It was even banned by the state of Alaska:

EULA Qoute:Special Notice for Residents of the State of Alaska, USA:

The Zango Software may be prohibited by Alaska law. Therefore, by installing or Using the Zango Software, you represent and warrant that your computer is not located in the state of Alaska. To the extent that our systems are able to recognize that your computer is located in the state of Alaska, we will not enable you to install the Zango Software.

*See disclaimer in update II below

SmartShopper deserves props
SmartShopper developed a neat technology that enables comparison of multiple shopping and travel sites in real time through a browser install. When you go shop online, SmartShopper identifies the exact product or service you are looking for, and intelligently appears in a separate browser pane with relevant alternative offers (If you want to try the service, watch the Smartshopper demo and click here to download). It claims to have over 10M users.

SmartShopper was lead by Oren Dobronsky, who spun it off from Hotbar in 2005. The company is based in New York and Tel Aviv with a head count of 10.
UPDATE I: alarm:clock gives the skinny on SmartShopper's buyout. In short, Zango payed $55M for Hotbar last June. Oren Dobronsky, who owned 10% of Hotbar Inc., bought out 100% of Smart Shopper from Zango for $250K and became the sole owner.

UPDATE II*: I received an email from Zango's PR manager today. So first, a quick disclaimer: I didn't download or install the products above and this post's information is based on publicly available sources on the web. Zango admits to have had problems with some distribution partners in the past, with emphasis on the past. They currently put great care into making sure that their products and distribution partners adhere to the Best Practices designed to protect consumers and business partners.

Goodbye HTML, Hello Flash - Wix.com Starts The Web-Top Revolution

"Every time you say web 3.0 a start up dies". Israeli stealth startup Wix.com is part of the revolution.

Wix, currently in private beta, enables users to create flash-based websites without writing a single line of code or being a guru designer. Wix believes that the time has come to for everyone to produce great web content on their own - by providing an open platform to create flash sites.

The sites can then be published on Wix or anywhere on the web. To top it off, users can import content from sites like Youtube, Facebook, Flickr etc, and Wix transforms their creations into widgets published on social networks.

So far, there have been plenty of web page creators that enabled composing simple HTML page , including: Google Page Creator, Synthasite, Weebly and Jimdo, but Wix is the first one to introduce Flash. Today to change the looks or even a word in a flash component, the user needed a developer or a flash designer involved. Not anymore.

The Web-Top Revolution
According to its website, Wix compares the web today to the print industry before 1985. Back then, even the simplest printing job required an expert, they say. Web publishing is not different today. To build a media rich web site, content creators also need to contact an expert, be it an HTML programmer or a flash designer. Wix believes that it can lead the 'web top revolution' by empowering users to create web sites, widgets, layout, slideshows, blogs and more.

The parent company is called WixPress and it is led by co-founder and CEO Giora (Gig) Kaplan, and co-founder Nadav Abrahami. Wixpress was founded on September of 2006 and has a team of 20based in Tel Aviv. The company raised an undisclosed seed round back in August.

Taking on BIG Challenges - G.ho.st Aims High

We're in conference season here in San Francisco and the Web 2.0 Summit that ended last week was one of the big ones. Thursday concluded with a Launch Pad in which six companies presented their startup to a VC panel. Among the finalists stood up G.ho.st, an ambitious Israeli/Palestinian start up.

G.ho.st stands for Global Hosted Operating System (Web-based OS). The company wants to provide people with what it calls a free “virtual computer,” letting you log onto an account from any browser and perform standard computing tasks including email, online file management (3G of free storage powered by Zimbra) and office applications such as Zoho, meebo and Thinkfree. This virtual computer is also protected from the risks of a desktop computer: no crashes, security threats or storage limitations. See G.ho.st's trailer and video introduction here.

G.ho.st launched back in April 2006 and raised $2M to date from an undisclosed investor. Their business model is risky: G.ho.st wants to get revenue as a mega affiliate, by taking a cut from transactions users make while surfing on G.ho.st. The judges commentary was mixed. On one hand, it's a big idea that solves a real problem, but on the other, it's unlikely that users will abandon their traditional computers and generate enough cash to sustain the company by shopping on a virtual machine.

Either way, G.ho.st aims high - both in the challenge it is trying to solve and in it's unique structure. Based in Jerusalem and Ramallah (west bank), G.ho.st is led by CEO Zvi Schreiber, and COO Tareq Maayah.

Ask the VC: Q&A with Gemini Israel Funds

Sagi Rubin is an associate at Gemini Israel Funds. I came across Sagi's blog, "The Grass is Greener on Our Side", and asked him to answer a few questions for VC Cafe. I hope you find the Israeli VC perspective an interesting one. For more Gemini VC Blogs check out Talia Aben's and Daniel Cohen's blog or his excellent recent post on VentureBeat.

As background, Gemini was founded in 1993 and has about $550M under management in four funds. It invests in approximately 35 tech companies in Communications & Wireless, Consumer Electronics, Enterprise Software, Internet and Semiconductors.

Gemini invests primarily in Israeli companies and entrepreneurs and its active portfolio includes adap.tv, conteXtream, esnips, IXI mobile and more. Most recently, Gemini sold Triana, a seller of automated post-trade processing services to ICAP for $248M in cash + $9M in ICAP shares.


Question: What are you looking for in a prospective company?

We are looking for companies that can become global market leaders, with several hundreds of $M in revenues. This requires first and foremost, a world class management team and founders. In addition, a very large market opportunity, the ability to build a strong and sustainable competitive edge (many time technological), have a sound business model, and very importantly (many times neglected…) a real need for your solution.

Question: Is there an entrepreneur that you see as a role model? Why?

Over the last years Israel has seen a new generation of entrepreneurs, which have the potential to bring the Israeli tech industry to a new level. One example is Dov Moran (Founder and CEO of M-systems, sold to Sandisk). These entrepreneurs have led companies from inception through to multi billion $ valuations. Now they have decided to start it all again, with new startups they believe can become even bigger. Dov is a role model since he is definitely not in it “for the money”. He genuinely wants to make an impact, and is aiming to “change the world” through technology.

TIP: Talia Aben from Gemini posted a few hiring tips from Dov here. His main parameters are:

1. IQ – Intellectual Abilities
2. EQ – Emotional development
3. AQ – Stamina

Question: What was your proudest moment as VC?

I think that my proudest moment is yet to come – when I achieve my first exit in a company I invest and work with throughout its lifetime… Being only 3 years in the industry, this has not yet arrived. Nonetheless, my proudest moments to date have been all those times where I was able to help entrepreneurs drive their companies ahead – such as introducing a portfolio company to their first client, helping bring a key team member on board, or even connecting an entrepreneur to an appropriate investor when we the company was out of our scope.
Question: What are the top services on the internet that you can't do without?

• Netvibes – A great way to centralize my information
• Animoto – I think this represents the new generation of media creation. And being able to compile a personal video clip for friends in seconds is a lot of fun.
• Ning – This service enabled us to develop an Israeli network for Internet entrepreneurs, which has taken off with great success
• And of course two Israeli companies we’ve invested in, eSnips and Supportspace

Become an Angel Today with Philanthropy 2.0

Philanthropy is not reserved for the mega rich. If you are asking the question 'what can I do to help fight poverty?' one of the answers is at the tip of your keyboard. Did you know that a mere $75 can be half of the 'seed round' for entrepreneurs in a developing country? With the many cyber charity and volunteer organizations online, you can become an angel investor and make a difference in someone's life.

Understanding the problem

In poor countries, banks and commercial money lenders generally charge interest rates of several hundred percent a year. As a result, borrowing money becomes a big risk and people tend to borrow for health emergencies rather than to finance a new business. In addition, access to banks in these developing countries is scarce, so earning interest from savings is often not an option.

What can you do to help?

Contributions- As we approach the holiday season, expand the present options. Sites such as Changing the present and Donors Choose (CTP was covered here in the past), suggest that your next gift to someone should be more meaningful than the J. Crew sweater you were about to buy for the holidays. Instead, they allow you to make a contribution to your charitable cause of choice. Check out CTP's recently announced Facebook App.

Micro Lending - many of the new micro financing communities for developing countries will allow you to invest directly in someone's business or cause.

• Kiva.org, has been described as "web 2.0 meets the Nobel Peace Prize". Founded by a young couple following a trip to Africa, Kiva lets people loan money to an entrepreneur in the developing world using lists of relatively small loan requests (usually $2000 or less). One may wonder how these entrepreneurs in developing countries hear about these opportunities. Some of them never even heard of the internet, so Kiva partnered with local lenders affiliated with Mercy Corps.

• Interesting stats: Kiva has 131K members. Total value of all loans made through Kiva.org is about $13M. The average size of a loan is $641.

• Learn more about the organization on Kiva's FAQ. See all business in need
  
  
  
  
• Unitus - "fights global poverty by using a venture capital model to increase access to microfinance". Unitus finds poverty-focused and commercially sustainable microfinance institutions (MFIs) and then work with the partners to improve their processes so that they can grow incredibly quickly. There are about 10K MFIs worldwide of which 68, representing 39 countries, are members of the platform. In 2006 over 1M families transformed their lives with loans as small as one hundred dollars. See the intro video.
  
  
• Global Giving - "a marketplace of goodness". Global Giving matches donors to doers by showcasing approximately 450 pre screened grassroots charity projects. Donations are tax deductible and guaranteed to be on the ground in less than 60 days.
  

Social entrepreneurship is not charity. It's an investment - and judging by the success of these services, it has a positive ROI too.

Who will create the world's first Virtual TV Network?

NBC, BBC, ABC... and maybe soon RayV TV as well. Israeli RayV raised a second round of $8M to develop live 24 hour broadcasts of quality programming for the PC and TV in what they call a "Virtual TV Network". Facebook's investor Accel Partners, one of Israel's most active VC funds, financed the round. Accel has more than $4B under management worldwide, $1B of which in two European funds that also invest in Israel.

So what's a virtual TV Network (VTN)?

According to the stealth-mode start-up, RayV developed proprietary internet protocols forming a generic grid network, basically enabling anyone to broadcast live TV to an unlimited amount of concurrent viewers at zero cost.

In other words, the first Virtual TV Network is a secure, scalable and manageable distribution vehicle of live real-time media without the need for centralized network resources. Similar to free web TV service Joost, RayV is also requires a download. You can get the beta here.

What are the benefits for the consumer?
According to RayV's website:

"Sure, we love the big networks - after all, they show us all the live Paris Hilton we can handle - and lots of other stuff too. We just want it at high quality on our TVs and on our PCs, anywhere in the world... and more...

We also want to watch live news channels from smaller, independent sources with correspondents around the world. We want channels of live performances from the newest bands at the University of Calcutta. And live coverage of rugby matches from England. And short-film channels from NYU Film School students. And coverage of local politics. And cooking channels for Vegans. And cooking channels for Carnivors."

RayV is not the only one attempting to join MetaCafe and BlogTV on the list of successful Israeli Video startups. Several Israeli companies are working on IPTV solutions:

• TVdoTV - The next generation of web TV
• Koala Technogies -Developing innovative interactive systems
• And possibly boxee - still in super stealth mode

RayV was founded in January 2006 by Omer Luzzatti (CEO), Ron Zuckerman, and Oleg Levy. It has 15 employees and offices in both Tel Aviv and New York.

Source: Globes

Oberon Media's "Showdown"

In all poker games, if more than one player remains after the last betting round, remaining players expose and compare their hands to determine the winner or winners. This is called the showdown.

Oberon Media, a leading casual gaming solution provider, held the cards tight this year after buying UK based I-Play, a mobile gaming company. Oberon continued to do so when it announced an additional undisclosed round of investments, and even more so when it didn't disclose the deal terms of their acquisition of PixelPlay, a global provider of brand-name games and entertainment for cross-platform play on interactive television, broadband, iPTV and mobile devices two months later.

In Oberon's recent FCC filings, they had to showdown. The filings revealed the price of the acquisitions, approximately totaling $70 million, which includes an $18 million common stock exchange, and $52.52 million in newly-raised junior preferred stock. The additional investment round was $47.4 million. Not bad.

Oberon's investors inlude Goldman Sachs Asset Management, Oak Investment Partners, Lehman Brothers Venture Capital, Morgan Stanley Private Equity, former e-Bay chairman Jeff Skoll through Capricorn Management, and Zohar Gilon. Even more impressive.

Oberon's main product, the Game Center platform is the industry standard and has been adopted by some of the world's largest corporations, powering sites such as: MSN Game Network, Verizon Broadband, Comcast, HP, Playboy, MTV and more. The platform enables partners to integrate online games, branding and features to fulfill each partner's specific needs.

Oberon Media is a private company founded in 2003 by CEO Tomer Ben Kiki, chairman Tal Kerret and head of Biz Dev, Ofer Leidner. The company has 300 employees, of whom 70 are at its development center in Tel Aviv and the rest in offices in New York, Seattle, London, Cyprus and Singapore. Oberon's top-selling casual games, which can be played in more than a dozen languages can be purchased and downloaded from the internet, cellular telephones, and home entertainment systems.

Download the filings:
Oberon’s junior preferred filing: Oberon_Preferred.pdf
Oberon’s common filing: Oberon_Common.pdf
[links via PE Hub]

Shvoong Homework Brings Social Collaboration to The Classroom

Israeli based Shvoong Homework brings 'basecamp' style tools, to kids in school.

SH is a social network for students that aims to keep students organized, by adding an alternative to messy notebooks. Using Shvoong Homework, students can share homework online, keep their notes in project notebooks and create a calendar of reminders with no storage limit.

The Features
Shvoong Homework offers different privacy settings. The students can keep their notebooks completely private or share the information with a person, a group or the whole class. Another interesting feature is the timetable - it is linked to the notebook and can be customized to send alerts of upcoming events. The site currently supports 30 languages, such as English, Hebrew, Hindi, Portuguese, Polish, Arabic, and Farsi, so no matter where you go to school, you can probably use it.

To gain initial traction to the site, Shvoong Homework announced an essay competition for students in 9th to 12th grade. Students are asked to answer the question "If you were elected President of the United States, which issue would you work on first?". The winner takes a cool check for $500.

Competition

Shvoong is definitely not alone in the market. Google Docs and Spreadsheets platform promotes their education package, allowing users to share homework and papers as well. There's also San Francisco based Scribd, a well funded hot startup that recently launched a Facebook App designed for older students.

But isn't it just like copying?

Good question, and Jeffro2pto has received Shvoong's official response:

Sharing, and in essence copying, class notes and homework among teenagers has always existed in some form or another. That form in today’s technologically advanced and connected world is online. Many students already do homework on personal computers (for example using MS Word) and share it with friends simply by emailing or IM’ing each other. So while it can be argued that Shvoong Homework now makes it easier since the writing and emailing/sharing is in one program and automated, we believe that the positives are much greater than the negatives and that the results will show that.

Shvoong Homework is a subsidiary of Shvoong.com, an aggregator of abstracts, summaries and essays on varied topics in 34 languages. Founded in 2005, Shvoong is led by CEO Eyal Rivlin, formerly the COO of Cassava Enterprises - the company behind several major gambling sites. Based in Herzliya, Shvoong currently has a team of ten.

Want more?

Watch Shvoong's introduction video here.

Combine the Collective Intelligence - Five Questions to OutBrain's CEO

I recently had the pleasure to "e-meet" Yaron Galai, Co-Founder and CEO of Outbrain, the company behind the voting widget in the bottom of this post.

Yaron was kind enough to answer 5 questions for VC Cafe. Without further ado, see the scoop below.

Question: In simple words, What is Outbrain?

• Yaron: Outbrain is a platform for ratings & recommendations of blog/RSS posts. In ways, it’s similar to Amazon’s “People who liked this also liked XYZ”, or Netflix ratings/recommendations, etc., just applied to blog content.

Question: What problem does Outbrain solve? How?

• Yaron: The problem we’re trying to solve is that of discovery of interesting content. The blogosphere is creating a ton of content everyday, yet there are no tools that help the readers find the most interesting content out there. In *search* mode, when I know what I’m looking for, this problem is solved by search engines. But in *discovery* mode, when I’m just looking for interesting content, there are no tools yet that help me do that.
  
  The best examples are the RSS aggregators – they’re great tools (I love Bloglines!), but at the same time they are completely broken because after subscribing to 10+ feeds I am completely swamped with a firehouse of content without any ability to find the good stuff.

Question: How long did it take to launch the product? What would you have done differently?

• Yaron: We’ve been working on this for about 1 year now. A lot of what we’ve done is behind the scenes and not visible… you’d be surprised how much effort it takes to create a solid ratings system that can correlate similar users and make recommendations based on that…
  
  One thing that I would have done differently is: We initially focused on providing individual users with a browser extension that embeds our functionality in their browser. That was a mistake, because we couldn’t get to a critical mass of data to make the product really useful (classic chicken&egg). We later decided to hold on the individual users and focus first on building a critical mass of data via blogger widgets and a free API we make available to RSS aggregators (like Bloglines). This has started proving itself with 4 RSS aggregators already embedding our API, and a few hundred bloggers signing up for our widget beta.

Question: Plans for growth? are you guys funded?

• Yaron:We’ve announced\na seed round earlier this year. You can read about it on my blog: http://www.webx0.com/2007/05/outbrain_gets_f.html
  
  
  1. We want to become the de-facto platform used for ratings of blog/RSS content. We think there is a ton of value for all players in this space to share data through a common platform. Otherwise no single player can will be able to accumulate enough meaningful data. For example – your posts may be consumed on your blog, but also via a variety of RSS aggregators, and email syndication, etc, etc. By aggregating the ratings from as many of these places where data might be consumed, we think we’ll be able to help everyone make much better reading recommendations.
     
     
  2. Our next phase will probably involve the introduction of some form of advertising based on the data we accumulate. We think there is a great opportunity to offer readers ads that are perfectly targeted to their interests based on how they rated various posts.

Question: What are the 5 services on the internet that you can't do without?

• Yaron: Hmmmm –
  

1. Bloglines
   
2. Gmail/Gtalk/ Google Maps
   
3. Techmeme
4. Del.icio.us
5. Hopstop.com
6. Amazon
   

Outbrain was founded in Israel on June of 2006. It currently has 10 employees and it is located both in Israel and NY. Otbrain's seed round was raised in May this year by LGiLab, GlenRock Israel, and Sigma PCM among others.

If you are blogger, you can download the voting widget here. For more information about Outbrain (including API) check out the company blog.

How Does a Tiny Company Attract Big Investors?

Dynasec Ltd, a spin off subsidiary of TACT Computers has the answer (for them).

Israel based Dynasec has just raised a $1M funding round based on a valuation of $6.7 million.
While the company size is tiny, investors include: Deutsche Bank, Merrill Lynch, Credit Suisse Group, along with Greek and Polish banks. When asked by Globes, TACT's CEO credited Eli Elroyi from GTC RE for organizing the foreign banks as a group of investors.

Dynasec's mission is to provide a platform that enables organizations to efficiently manage risk, governance and compliancy processes. The company developed Securitive(TM), a suite of web-based applications that enables companies to continuously manage and control compliance, corporate governance and risk management processes. Its clients include some of Israel's major banks (including HSBC), government agencies, health & energy mega corporations and more.

Dynasec was founded in 2002 and is led by CEO Mati Ram from it's headquarters in suburban Yokne’am, Israel. The company has 10 employees.

more coverage on: Globes and alarm:clock

Sports Fan Portal Raises $3.2

Sports fan portal Sportingo has raised a $3.2 million round from Ingenious Media of London. This is confirmed by Sportingo's latest blog post.

The company started in Israel in August of '06, with the goal of letting fans of a range of sports create a sport news community and write their own match reviews or opinions and get their articles professionally edited and enhanced by a team of experienced sport editors. The site mostly covers Soccer, Tennis, Cricket and Rugby.

Sportingo's expansion began a couple of months ago with the aquisition of UK soccer blog CaughtOffside.

The company is led by Ze'ev Rozov and has recently opened an office in London in addition to the Herzliya office in Israel.

More coverage: Paid content & Mashable

Eye Opener - Redfin Model Numbers vs. Reality

Guy Kawaski posted an insightful post comparing Redfin's financial valuation numbers to reality during two years of operation, courtesy of CEO Glenn Kelman.

I was surprised to see how accurately the model predicted some of the costs associated to operations, taxes and services, and in contrast how far off it was when it came to HR/ recruiting. and recruiting.

If you can’t build an engineering team through your own network, recruiting fees can become a significant expense at an early stage.

In the second part of the article, Glenn provides the lessons learned for building a financial model. I recommend reading the full post, but in the meanwhile here's the abbreviated version.

1. Focus on headcount.
2. Plan slow, run fast.
3. Run top-down sanity-checks.
4. Forget economies of scale.
5. Admit that revenues are a mystery.
6. Build from building blocks.
7. Take out "hope".
8. Flag your assumptions.
9. Hit $100 million in revenues within five years.
10. Keep market-share under 20%.

According to alarm:clock, since Redfin's last round of financing in May 2006, it claims to have completed more than $350M in real estate transactions, saved its home-buying customers nearly $6M in commissions, and increased revenues by more than 2,000%. They've raised three rounds totaling $20.8M to date.

Redfin combines MLS listing information (homes for sale) with historical sales data (homes already sold) into a single map. I mentioned Redfin in my post on Real Estate tools as one of the leading players in the market. Thanks for sharing Glenn and good luck.