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Left for dead in a temporary tsunami of text and messaging innovation, the voice call is about to be reborn.
Yallo is a start-up with a big and bold vision: to reinvent the phone call so people can fall in love with it again. We've all seen the innovation in messaging, photography and video -- from WhatsApp and SnapChat to Instagram and Meerkat. But the phone call hasn't changed in decades. Until now.
Launching today on Android (with iOS to follow), Yallo gives voice users never-before-seen powers. When has the phone call been this useful, flexible or entertaining?
·Call Caption lets you identify the subject of every call (like email) so recipients can triage and respond... or not.
·Calls can be recorded, archived, transcribed, and made searchable at any point in the call.
·Summon a group with a single click - a seamless option for connecting families, business teams or any group that you need to join on the fly.
·Our Connection Keeper instantly restores dropped calls when the signal reemerges -- no more annoying dance of who's calling whom back!
·Flex - Move calls effortlessly from one device to another. Start on your mobile and switch to your desktop or tablet without a hitch.
·Existing phone numbers are welcome - No need to get a new number or transfer your existing one.
·Yallo's Busy Buster creates a "connection contract." Both parties agree that their calls take priority, and Yallo gently but firmly interrupts a call to connect you -- and busts the busy signal!
·Add new numbers - as many as you want, with a click; imagine unique numbers for all of your relationships!
Coming soon will be features like:
·Geosmarts - Set up a call to ring the moment someone gets to a specific destination.
·Theater of the Call - Add music, sound effects, modulations and flirty images.
"We are reinventing the voice call, top to bottom," said Tal Elyashiv, CEO and Founder of Yallo. "The human voice is the most powerful and nuanced communications medium. Text and messaging have their role, but we seek to restore the voice call to the center of our communication palette, with ongoing innovations that meet the needs of today's highly-engaged, personal and business lifestyles. We are a platform for voice disruption -- what AT&T and Bell Labs were in the 19th and 20th century, we are in the 21st century."
"Yallo is transforming the voice communication experience," said Shlomo Dovrat, Co-Founder and General Partner of Carmel Ventures, an early investor in Yallo. "That's the big vision of the company. All of our social and business communications will be elevated by what Tal and his team are brilliantly delivering."
The Payoneer Freelancer Income Survey 2015 includes data from respondents in 180 countries across six continents, offering freelancers in both developed and emerging markets a better understanding of the vast opportunities available to them. The average global hourly billing rate of about $21 is significantly higher than the average wages in most of the countries included in the survey.
"There's an obvious appeal to freelancing – businesses worldwide can tap into a larger and more diverse talent pool than ever before, and it enables freelancers and service providers to secure work with international companies in ways that were previously unavailable to them," said Scott Galit, CEO at Payoneer. "Freelancing offers smart, talented, hardworking professionals and business owners in emerging economies such as Argentina, Bangladesh, India, the Philippines and Serbia a major breakthrough in job prospects and earning potential that they would have never thought possible a few years ago. There has traditionally been very little standardization and transparency when it comes to freelancing rates, so we wanted to provide a resource that would provide a benchmark for the freelancing landscape globally."
The survey also measured education levels for global freelancers finding that a higher level of education mattered less in determining fees than experience and skills. Additionally, the survey revealed near gender parity, with almost identical rates charged by male and female freelancers worldwide, and some markets such as Russia and Pakistan indicated women charge more than men for freelance work.
"Much of what we found in this survey is that companies hiring freelancers are more interested in their skills, experience and ratings than traditional education," said Galit. "Freelancers looking for work have more opportunities than ever before to take advantage of cross-border freelancing and we are proud to have the opportunity to contribute to the success of hundreds of thousands of freelancers globally by simplifying the way they get paid for their cross-border sales."
The results offer companies who hire freelancers – including the thousands of North American businesses who hire writers, translators, developers and designers from abroad – insights into the top markets for hiring freelance talent. The survey also provides companies with a better understanding of how freelancers and businesses are finding each other. For example, three in five freelancers find their jobs through online social networks – Facebook even more than Linkedin.
"In any type of business or even as an individual, knowing where to secure work, how much to charge and the best way to receive payments is one of the most critical aspects to consider," said Allan Donato, co-founder of EASE Technology Solutions, an IT consulting and outsourcing company in the Philippines. "We have a talented team that provides top-notch service to our clients all over the world, but it's a fiercely competitive market. Working with Payoneer, we have accelerated the growth of our company in terms the number of projects, employees and earnings."
To download the full Payoneer Freelancer Income Survey 2015 report, visit the download page. To learn more about how Payoneer is empowering global commerce with cross-border payment services for business, visit the Payoneer website.
About Payoneer Payoneer empowers global commerce by connecting businesses, professionals, countries and currencies with its innovative cross-border payments platform. In today's borderless digital world, Payoneer enables millions of businesses and professionals from more than 200 countries to reach new audiences by facilitating seamless, cross-border payments. Additionally, thousands of leading corporations including Google, Airbnb, Elance-oDesk and Getty Images rely on Payoneer's mass payout services.
With Payoneer's fast, flexible, secure and low-cost solutions, businesses and professionals in both developed and emerging markets can now pay and get paid globally as easily as they do locally. Founded in 2005 and based in New York, Payoneer is venture-backed, profitable and ranked in the top 100 of Inc. 5000's Financial Services companies. For more information, visit us at http://www.payoneer.com or follow us on Twitter and Facebook.
Enterprise Work Collaboration Leader Earns Prestigious Software Industry Recognition for Fourth Consecutive Year
Clarizen, the leader in enterprise work collaboration software, today announced it has been named a finalist for the 2015 SIIA Software CODiE Awards for the Best Project Management Solution category. The SIIA CODiE Awards are the premier awards for the software and information industries and have been recognizing product excellence for 30 years.
"We're excited to be recognized once again by SIIA for excellence in project management software. Companies today need to be able to continuously innovate and execute against moving targets, and that requires collaboration in the context of getting work done," said Avinoam Nowogrodski, Clarizen CEO. "Reflecting this, Clarizen's own innovation in enterprise work collaboration is focused on helping our customers deliver innovation, efficiency and transparency in their organizations."
Clarizen's enterprise work collaboration platform combines true social engagement with powerful project management. The company recently announced its Spring 2015 Release, a major strategic enhancement to its award-winning platform, which delivers a 360-degree view of the health of companies' business projects and initiatives. By providing real-time visibility into the health of companies' initiatives, Clarizen is providing leaders with unprecedented insights to make more informed and timely business decisions.
"All the CODiE finalists this year showcase innovation and creativity in today's market. We are happy to recognize them for their products that are breaking ground in the software and services industries," said Rhianna Collier, VP & General Manager for the Software & Services Division at SIIA.
The CODiE awards include more than 85 categories and are organized by industry focus of Content, Education, and Software. This year's program features 29 software categories, several of which are new or updated to reflect the latest industry trends. Winners will be announced during a special virtual SIIA Software CODiE Awards Ceremony on May 7.
Details about each finalist are listed at http://siia.net/codies/2015/finalists.asp.
For more information about Clarizen's enterprise work collaboration solutions, visit: http://www.clarizen.com/project-management-solutions.html
About SIIA
SIIA is the leading association representing the software and digital content industries. SIIA represents approximately 800 member companies worldwide that develop software and digital information content. SIIA provides global services in government relations, business development, corporate education and intellectual property protection to the leading companies that are setting the pace for the digital age. For more information, visit www.siia.net.
About SSD
The Software & Services Division of SIIA (SSD) represents companies that develop the applications, services, infrastructure and tools driving the success of today's high-tech industry. SSD programs and activities are designed to foster company growth and success by providing professional insights and strategy, executive networking, industry exposure and business development opportunities. SSD member executives actively collaborate to share business and operational expertise, best practices, and new innovations to help companies efficiently build growing and successful businesses. For more information, visit www.siia.net/SSD.
About Clarizen
Clarizen is a work collaboration platform that helps companies get work done faster. The company's enterprise-class work collaboration and project management solutions harness the power of the cloud to get work done efficiently, effectively and with better results. Fast to deploy and easy to use, Clarizen is redefining enterprise collaboration by connecting social context with tasks and projects to drive increased productivity and profitability. Clarizen fuels the high-performance teams of more than 2,300 organizations across 76 countries, including dozens of the Fortune 500. Most recently, Gigaom Research rated Clarizen at the top in its Sector RoadMap: process-based collaboration in 2014 report. Founded in 2006, Clarizen is privately held with locations all around the world including San Mateo, CA, Tel Aviv, IL and London, UK. For more information, visit www.clarizen.com.
Avi is a co-founder of the Viola Group, and a co-founder of Carmel Ventures. He serves as a General Partner at Carmel and he leads Carmel's FinTech practice. His investment interests include Software, Financial Services and Big Data.Avi was the first VC investor in Actimize, where he served as an active Chairman from 2001 and until it was sold to NICE Systems Ltd. (NASDAQ: NICE), in August 2007, for $280 million. Avi currently serves on the Board of Directors of Payoneer, YCD, Clarizen, SundaySky, Personetics and TradAir.Avi serves as the Chairman of the VC Committee at the Israel Advanced Technologies Industries Association (IATI). Avi is a lecturer at the Kellogg Recanati International Executive MBA Program where he teaches the "VC –What's it all about" course.Avi began his career as a hi-tech entrepreneur and was a co-founder and CEO of MINT Technologies. After merging Mint into Oshap, he served as the CFO of Oshap that was acquired by SunGard for $220M. Avi is involved in several educational non for profit organizations.
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Ori Bendori joined Carmel Ventures in October 2004 as a General Partner, with over 25 years of management leadership in the Hi-Tech industry. He is focusing primarily on investments in the areas of Communications, Infrastructure, Semiconductors and Energy. Ori served as a board member of CopperGate that was acquired by Sigma Designs for $180M in 2009. He was also the first investor and board member of DesignArt Networks that was acquired by Qualcomm in 2012. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of Optimal Plus, Reduxio, LiveU, Adapteva and Multiphy. Prior to joining Carmel Ori served as a VP & General Manager of the Enterprise Internetworking Systems Division at Avaya. Prior to this role he served as VP & General Manager of the LAN Systems Group at Lucent and before that as CTO of Lannet. He began his career in the Israeli Aircraft Industries. Ori holds a B.Sc. in Mathematics & Computer Science from Tel Aviv University, Israel.Ori served as a Major and Fighter Pilot in the Israeli Air Force for 19 years.
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Ronen Joined Carmel Ventures in February 2008 and currently serves as a General Partner. Ronen investment areas focus on SaaS, big data, cyber security and internet and he is currently a board member in Real Match, Samanage, ironSource, Perfecto Mobile, Kampyle and Redis Labs. Before joining Carmel, Ronen held senior executive positions in several leading Hi-Tech companies, including a VP Product in Verint Systems' ACS division; and a Project Team Manager in ECtel Ltd (NASDAQ:ECTX), in charge of delivering large scale, multi million dollars projects to North and Latin America regions.Ronen served 13 years in an elite Israeli Defense Forces' Intelligence Unit where he holds a rank of Lieutenant Colonel (Res.). He holds a B.A. (Com Laude) in Economics and Middle-East history from Tel Aviv University, Israel, and an M.Sc in Technology Management from the University of Maryland University College (UMUC).
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Daniel Cohen joined Carmel Ventures in mid-2013 as a General Partner, with more than 11 years of VC experience. Daniel investment interests include digital media and consumer internet. He currently serves on the board of Tapingo, LuckyFish and PlayBuzz.Prior to joining Carmel, Daniel served as a General Partner in Gemini Israel Ventures from 2006 to 2012 and before that as a principal since 2001. In Gemini Daniel led investments and served as a board member in Adap.tv (acquired by AOL in 2013 for $405M), Outbrain, SupportSpace, Massive Impact, Watchdox, Eyeview and FTBPro. Daniel also managed Gemini's Silicon Valley office in the years 2006-2009.Daniel is a graduate of the Kauffman Fellows Program and He holds a B.A. in Computer Science and Psychology from Tel Aviv University an MBA from INSEAD.Email: firstname.lastname@example.com: @cohedaBlog: Israel Venture Capital 3.0
Rina Shainski joined Carmel in 2000 as a General Partner, with vast experience in the Hi-Tech industry . Rina's investment interests include mobility, digital media and internet. Rina led a number of investments in mobile applications and services pioneers, such as Followap that was acquired by Neustar, in 2006, and Snaptu that was acquired by Facebook in 2011. She also served on the board of Kontera that was acquired by SingTel in 2014. Rina serves on the board of directors of Skybox, Perfecto Mobile, myThings and Tonara. Before joining Carmel Rina served as VP Business Development, responsible for IT investments, at Clal Industries and Investments, where she led the investment in Fundtech (NASDAQ:FNDT) that was acquired by GTCR in December 2011 for approximately $390M. Prior to that Rina held executive management positions in R&D and Business Development positions in Tecnomatix, and served in R&D management positions in high growth companies in the Silicon Valley. Rina holds an M.Sc. in Computer Science from Weizmann Institute, Israel, a B.Sc in Physics from Tel Aviv University, Israel.
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Ronit joined Carmel in 2004 from TTI Telecom (NASDAQ:TTIL), a leading communications software provider, where she served as VP, Human Resources. At Carmel, Ronit assists in both team evaluations during the due diligence process and in recruitment of management for portfolio companies post-investment. Ronit works closely with the CEOs on organization building and structure, and provides advice on bridging geographical and cultural gaps to create truly unified global organizations. Ronit also coordinates Carmel's HR Forum, comprised of Carmel portfolio company HR Directors who gather on a quarterly basis for professional enrichment. Prior to TTI, Ronit managed the High-Tech Consulting Practice group of Ofer Ariely, a leading Israeli high-tech organizational consulting firm. Ronit holds a B.A. in Psychology and an M.Sc. in Organizational Behavior from Tel Aviv University.
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Maya Pizov joined Carmel in August 2012 and has over 7 years of experience in product management, program and account management from leading tech firms and the Israeli Ministry of Defense. Before her MBA, Maya was a Program Manager and Account Manager at eBay, as part of its Israeli Development Center. She also held the position of Product Manager at Shopping.com, an eBay company, focusing on building structured data systems. Before joining eBay, Maya was an Application Consultant at Oracle, working with the company's clients to implement ERP and CRM systems. Maya served as Lieutenant in an Israeli Defense Forces Intelligence Unit. She holds a B.Sc. in Industrial Engineering from Tel Aviv University, and an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University (majors in Entrepreneurship, Strategy and Marketing).
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Debbie Levi joined Carmel in June 2011 and has over 10 years of experience in marketing, business development, and sales in both start-up and corporate environments in the US and in Israel.Before joining Carmel, Debbie served as Marketing Director at Mytopia (acquired by 888 Holdings), a social gaming studio where she was part of the management team and responsible for marketing strategy, business development and monetization. Prior to this, as Head of Marketing at mySupermarket, an online grocery shopping and price comparison website, Debbie managed the marketing team and strategy and was responsible for traffic acquisition, growth and data analysis. Prior to mySupermarket, Debbie was Senior Account Manager/Affiliate Program Manager, Marketing at Kasamba (acquired by LivePerson), a live expert advice website. Before moving to Israel, Debbie served as Account Manager at News America Marketing (a division of News Corp), a consumer packaged goods marketing services company, and held marketing internships at companies such as America Online. Debbie holds a B.A in Communications and Psychology from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and an MBA from Bar Ilan University, Israel.
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Hila Shitrit Nissim joined Carmel in 2005 as a marketing director and since 2012 she is in charge of Viola Group's marketing activities. She is responsible for Viola's branding, marketing strategy and implementation. This includes events, sponsorships, speaking engagements, public relations and social media. Hila provides assistance to Viola Group's portfolio companies with marketing related issues, press releases, and branding. Before joining Carmel, Hila spent five years as Project Manager and Team Leader at a leading Israeli conference organizer in charge of organizing local and international conferences for The Israel Venture Association. Prior to this, Hila served as Officer in the IDF Spokesperson Unit, in charge of the IDF's public relations activities.
Hila holds a B.A. in Economics and Business Administration from Bar-Ilan University, Israel, and an MBA from Tel Aviv University (dual major in Marketing and Strategy).
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Michal Cohen joined Carmel in 2007 and has over 15 years of experience in practicing law. At Carmel, Michal is responsible for all legal aspects of Carmel investments and exit processes, as well as Fund-related legal issues. With extensive experience in venture capital investments, Michal works closely with Carmel's portfolio companies from the early stages of initial investment through mergers, acquisitions and IPOs. Before joining Carmel, Michal was an Associate at the New York law firm Schulte Roth & Zabel LLP, specializing in securities and M&A transactions. She represented U.S. corporations in various types of securities offerings, including initial public offerings on the New York Stock Exchange, and M&A transactions. Prior to this, Michal served as General Counsel for Dingo Ltd., an Israeli company in the international textile industry. Before joining Dingo, Michal practiced law with Melcer & Co. Michal holds a B.A. in Law from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, an Executive MBA from Bar-Ilan University, Israel, and is licensed by both the Israeli and New York Bars.
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With over 35 years of experience in software engineering, Ofer Brandes has a strong background in technology. Ofer has worked with Carmel's founding Partners in various capacities for the past 15 years, and joined Carmel as CTO in 2003. As a part-time technology consultant, Ofer is involved in the technological evaluation aspects of the due diligence process, and works with CTOs and R&D managers of portfolio companies post-investment. Ofer also serves as the CEO of Tersus, a Visual Programming Platform for creating rich web and mobile applications. Prior to joining Carmel, Ofer was the CTO at SunGard Business Integration ("SBI", formerly MINT). Prior to SBI, Ofer was the Chief Designer and Programmer at Tovna, an Israeli company which developed software for automatic translation between English, French and Russian. From 1993 through 1996, Ofer was Senior Advisor to Israel's Minister of Education. He served in the Israeli Defense Forces' prestigious Intelligence Corps and holds a B.Sc. (with distinction) in Mathematics and Computer Sciences from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
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Noya Lizor joined Viola Group in 2014 as Director of Content and is responsible for Viola Group's content marketing activities. As her first order of business Noya has overseen the creation of Viola Notes (our blog) which will tap into the unique expertise of Viola Group's Partners, members of our portfolio companies and other industry experts in order to provide useful and interesting insights for Israeli entrepreneurs and the start-up world in general.Noya returned to Israel in 2008 after over 20 years in Australia. Her career in Sydney spanned several industries including advertising and publishing and she has vast experience in a variety of online marketing disciplines including email marketing, customer retention and content strategy. In her last role before moving to Israel Noya worked at McCann Worldgroup in Sydney where in addition to being a copywriter she also managed the agency's email marketing program, namely for their largest client Microsoft Australia.Since 2008 Noya has worked in Israel's vibrant startup scene in several senior marketing roles. She has a soft spot for Email and also runs her own blog (TheBestOfEmail.com).
Noya holds a B.A. Communications from the University of Technology, Sydney.
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Founded in 2000, Carmel Ventures is managing over $800M across four funds. As Israel's top tier VC firm, we invest in Israeli or Israeli related early stage companies and build global category leaders. Carmel invests across a number of key market segments including: software, new enterprise infrastructure, big data, digital media, consumer applications and semiconductors.
Our team approaches the investment as a proactive, hands-on endeavor. Carmel Ventures typically leads or co-leads investments and take an active role on the Board of Directors while keeping a low ratio of companies per partner. With strong M&A and IPO experience, the Carmel team has backed a disproportional share of Israel's category leaders that generate over $50M in annual revenues, including: Outbrain, ironSource, Payoneer, and more.
Samanage, provider of the only true multi-tenant, unified service desk and asset management cloud solution on the market, today announced that The Riverside Company has joined its growing community of customers who are using the true-cloud solution to improve efficiency and deliver better business value throughout the organization. The Riverside Company is a global private equity firm based in New York City, focused on investing in and acquiring growing businesses valued at up to $300 million. Their reach is worldwide across four continents and more than 200 employees and consultants.
The Riverside Company came to Samanage as it was facing increasing complexity and costs with the BMC Service Desk Express (SDE) product they were using. "From a functionality perspective, the SDE solution was complex and inflexible," said Jake Lilie, Director of IT Operations at The Riverside Company. "Any changes, reports or even workflow required the work of an expensive third-party expert." The announcement that BMC would be sunsetting the SDE offering spurred the team to action, and they began a search for alternative solutions. The Riverside Company's requirements for a new ITSM solution included:
In addition to Samanage, The Riverside Company evaluated a number of other products "We chose Samanage for its ease of use and ability to customize without having to use a third party resource," said Lilie.
Within just a few days, the Samanage asset management agent was pushed out to all of their computers globally. "Just by pushing out that agent, I have real tangible access to data and can take immediate action on any potential risks, " said Lilie. "That is meaningful not just to me but to others in my office that have to track assets, such as my CFO and accounting team. It [asset warranty notification] has been very important from a fiscal perspective, because you want to avoid contracts auto-renewing," said Lilie.
Additionally, The Riverside Company has experienced the following results:
Lilie adds that the Samanage Community has been an unexpected benefit to his team. "It's rare to find a product team so engaged and fast to respond to questions and feature requests on a community," said Lilie. "The level at which Samanage is active on their community speaks to the agility of the solution. It's great to be able to tap into this agility as the product is continuously enhanced."
The Riverside Company has also expanded its use of the Samanage Service Desk solution to other functional areas of the business including Human Resources, Compliance, and Marketing.
"I really see Samanage as the single source to house and manage all requests across the firm, be it marketing, human resources and obviously IT," Lilie said. "That will have a very powerful impact for us, giving us the ability to provide better customer service to all Riverside team members regardless of where they are in the world."
About Samanage
Samanage is enterprise service desk software that manages service relationships in the company and helps get work done. Samanage delivers an exceptional user experience with beautiful software that people love to use. Instantly deployed and continuously updated in the cloud, Samanage service and asset management software lets you quickly drive business value by connecting your people with the key business services they use every day. Visit http://www.samanage.com.
Chinese Internet Giant Baidu, and Carmel Ventures, Co-Lead $5M Investment Round in Tonara, the Leading Music Education Technology Platform
Today, Tonara, a music education technology company, announced a $5 million investment round led by Baidu, China's leading search engine, and Carmel Ventures. Baidu's investment and partnership will accelerate Tonara's growth, particularly in China, the world's largest music education market. Existing investors also participated in the round. Baidu's Senior Director of Corporate Development, Peter Fang, will be joining Tonara's board.
"Tonara's mission is to redefine the way music is taught, learned and practiced around the world by bringing music education into the digital age. We are excited by Baidu's endorsement of Tonara's vision and potential" said Guy Bauman, CEO of Tonara. "The new funding will enable us to scale and reach music students and teachers globally. We're thrilled to cooperate with Baidu in reaching out to the Chinese audience"
"Tonara has consistently pushed the envelope when it comes to developing innovative and revolutionary technology," said Peter Fang of Baidu. "Not only is there a huge global market for Tonara's music education platform, a large piece of which is China, but we see many other possible applications for Tonara's technology. We are certain that Tonara's future will be extraordinary, and we're proud to be a part of it."
"Music education hasn't changed for hundreds of years. We are delighted to support Tonara in its mission to redefine the huge global market of music education by creating a user-friendly music practicing experience on tablets for students and teachers," added Rina Shainski, General Partner of Carmel Ventures.
The company currently offers two apps: Tonara, a fully digitized sheet music platform for professional and amateur musicians which, follows played music, flips the pages during rehearsal and performance, and offers an extensive catalog of scores. Following professional artists' onstage success with Tonara, the Wolfie app for teachers and students was launched in 2014. Based on the same proprietary technology, Wolfie is transforming music education by using an iPad to create an interactive and engaging music learning experience. Wolfie supports teacher-student communication and features an extensive catalogue of music lessons organized by levels.
Tonara and Wolfie's music catalog is constantly expanding thanks to partnerships with music publishers. The company will be announcing new partnerships with major music publishers in the coming months, further developing the catalogue, and cementing Tonara's leadership as the provider of the best apps for musicians – whether they are students, teachers, or world-class performers.
About Tonara:
Tonara launched in 2011 with an industry-first interactive digital music sheet app for the iPad that has been embraced by performers on stage as well as by amateur players. Tonara is a music technology company developed by musicians for all those who love music. With a mission to broaden access and be a catalyst for lifelong learning at all levels, Tonara is leading the transition of sheet music into the digital age by making it accessible and interactive. Tonara's technology is also paving the way for a wide range of new applications for digitized music, including its premier music education platform Wolfie. For more information about Tonara, visit www.tonara.com; for Wolfie, visit www.wolfiepiano.com.
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Tapingo today announced a $22 million investment led by Qualcomm Incorporated through its investment arm Qualcomm Ventures. DCM Ventures, Kinzon Capital, and existing investors Khosla Ventures and Carmel Ventures also participated in the round. The company will use the funding to accelerate its expansion beyond the college market, with the goal of transforming local commerce.
Tapingo is led by founder/CEO Daniel Almog and CTO Udi Oster, who met in the IDF's intelligence unit. Its mobile-ordering technology is designed to make buying things quicker and more convenient. Tapingo uses machine-learning technology to determine user preferences from everyday behavior, then match those preferences with what's available nearby.
"When you buy a coffee, you shouldn't have to wait in line, pay at a register, then wait again," says Almog. "Your phone should know what kind of coffee you like and make sure it's available for you—where you need it, when you need it."
After Tapingo went viral at the College of Management in Rishon Le'tziyon, Almog and Oster moved to the USA to tap into its large college market. Since then, Tapingo has grown from two dozen campuses to more than 85 across the USA. Tapingo currently processes more than 25,000 transactions per day, with the average user transacting more than four times per week—making it larger than any other on-demand ordering service.
"Our vision was always to begin with dense retail ecosystems involving high-frequency transactions. We realized that college campuses were the perfect proving ground," says Almog. "What we didn't anticipate was how quickly universities and students would adopt this new behavior. This validated our decision to bring the technology to analogous ecosystems."
Citing the overwhelming popularity of Tapingo among its users, Almog notes that the company has not only confidence in its product but an extremely loyal, growing user base to serve as a foundation for pursuing new verticals. Earlier this year, the company expanded into several new services, including delivery and general campus retail.
"The key to winning the on-demand space is to become part of a consumer's everyday routine," says Almog. "We've achieved this at an unprecedented scale in our key markets. With this foundation, we're ready to take the next leap."
With rapid scaling a priority, Tapingo will use the new round of funding to hire aggressively as well as invest in product development, operations, and marketing.
"Tapingo has used a mobile-first approach to create a win-win for consumers and merchants," says Mony Hassid, Senior Director of Qualcomm Ventures. "We believe that they are uniquely positioned to win the large and growing local-commerce market."
Tapingo helps busy people get what they need—where they need it and when they need it.
Tapingo's native mobile apps combine a rich, intuitive browsing platform with local merchant partnerships. This lets you buy things around you instantly and hassle-free. The product learns your preferences and eliminates stress and wasted time.
Tapingo offers merchant partners simple infrastructure for order processing. It helps merchants gain new customers, grow loyalty and usage among existing customers, and cut costs.
Tapingo received a Series A investment led by Carmel Ventures and a Series B investment led by Khosla Ventures prior to the current funding round.
For more information, visit www.tapingo.com and download the Tapingo app from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store.
One of the biggest names in sports is letting other publications tap into its digital audience.
ESPN and content recommendation platform Outbrain announced Thursday that the two signed a multi-year, global deal. And, because Outbrain is being integrated into ESPN's in-house sales platform, it will allow third-party content to be seeded natively into ESPN's editorial stream, including between articles in the ESPN newsfeed.
"We used to work primarily with business development or product teams, and now we also work with sales teams," Outbrain vp of product marketing Matt Crenshaw said. "The result: product teams get better content recommendations, business teams get new revenue, and now ad sales teams get more flexibility to serve the ad campaigns that they sell directly."
According to the publisher, it has more than 116 million unique visitors monthly across its digital networks.
"This gives our sales team a new avenue by which to tap into the sponsored content marketplace. We look forward to bringing these solutions to our global customer base," ESPN Customer Marketing and Sales president Ed Erhardt added in a press release.
Outbrain's content reaches 550 million people around the globe, providing a larger reach than most publications could do on their own. Using a variety of factors including what's on the Web page, previous user behavior, context of the user's visit and trending topics, it places promoted links on partner publication's pages. The company and its partners make money by charging a rate to have other outlets' links included. Not only can this drive additional traffic for those who buy into the service, it creates another way to re-promote older content that might not be buzzy anymore.
Crenshaw said that increasingly publishers are integrating its services into their sales platforms, allowing for more native placements. Previously, most Outbrain content was contained in a widget at the bottom of the page, but by working with the publisher's direct sales team other publication's content can be sprinkled in premium locations like the the right rails, homepages, mobile pages and on video. Outbrain also recently signed contracts with other publishers including Time Inc., Le Monde Group and CNN.
"Fully integrating Outbrain as a critical system creates a sort of content intelligence system," Crenshaw explained. "This is more and more where our conversations are going with publishers."
Samanage, leading provider of cloud-based enterprise service desk software, and MetricNet, leading provider of benchmarks for IT service and support professionals, announced today the launch of Samanage Benchmarking, the only real-time service benchmarking solution for the service and support industry.
Samanage CEO, Doron Gordon, together with MetricNet's Co-Founder and Managing Partner, Jeff Rumburg, made the announcement at the HDI 2015 Expo and Conference this week in Las Vegas.
"Service professionals are challenged to do more with less, and continuously find ways to improve their service organization," said Gordon. "Samanage Benchmarking empowers service managers to measure the performance of their service organization, compare it against industry peers and continuously identify performance improvements and cost savings opportunities, in real-time and at a fraction of what it has cost in the past."
Using Samanage's true-cloud service management platform, Samanage Benchmarking analyzes the performance of thousands of service desk organizations to create peer group specific key performance indicators (KPIs). Customers are then compared against peer organizations based on performance data from the Samanage customer community, combined with thousands of service desk benchmarks completed by MetricNet. Samanage Benchmarking automates data collection, performance reporting, diagnosis and action planning, and provides a Samanage Score which is the culmination of where the service organization is rated in the industry.
"By leveraging Samanage's true-cloud SaaS based delivery model with the benchmarking expertise and data from MetricNet, Samanage Benchmarking makes quality, real-time benchmark reports more economical than ever before," said Rumburg. "Samanage Benchmarking can be used for forecasting and planning changes within the service organization, allowing them to better understand the impact planned changes have on cost and quality of the service level they provide. It is a first of its kind solution and will allow us to make Service Desk Benchmarking available for every service organization in the world" said Rumburg.
Samanage Benchmarking fully integrates with the Samanage Service Desk solution and is readily available and free to existing Samanage customers. Non-Samanage customers can still use Samanage Benchmarking with their current service desk solution and benefit from a continuous way to track and measure their service organization. To learn more about the Samanage Service Desk platform and Samanage Benchmarking visit http://www.samanage.com.
About Samanage Samanage is enterprise service desk software that manages service relationships in the company and helps get work done. Samanage delivers an exceptional user experience with beautiful software that people love to use. Instantly deployed and continuously updated in the cloud, Samanage service and asset management software lets you quickly drive business value by connecting your people with the key business services they use every day. Visit http://www.samanage.com.
About MetricNet MetricNet is the global leader in IT service and support benchmarking. More than half of the Fortune 500 rely on MetricNet benchmarks to improve and optimize their performance. With a global benchmarking database of more than 3,000 IT service and support benchmarks, MetricNet has the most comprehensive database of process and performance metrics in the industry. Visit http://www.metricnet.com.
Accenture (ACN) has enhanced its market-leading Accenture Life Insurance Platform (ALIP) by adding personalized SmartVideo capabilities that help life insurance and annuity carriers deliver dramatically improved customer experiences through digital channels. The new solution allows carriers to take advantage of engaging, personalized and data-driven videos at scale to help support and retain customers throughout the customer lifecycle.
SmartVideo allows carriers to use customer and policy information that is already stored in their systems to quickly and cost-effectively create data-driven videos. Delivered in real time, these videos provide customers with account set up information, billing statements, and events confirmations.
"As technology and industry changes continue at a blistering pace, carriers find themselves in the midst of a digital transformation that requires a focus on innovation. Integrating SmartVideo technology into ALIP will change the way carriers communicate with their customers and help foster engagement and increase brand loyalty," said Shay Alon, global managing director, Accenture Software for Life and Annuity. "Our new SmartVideo complements Accenture's life insurance and annuity offerings by enabling carriers to create unique digital experiences while reducing contact center and operational costs."
As part of an exclusive alliance with SundaySky, SmartVideo technology is offered as a software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution designed to provide technology and commercial framework for smooth deployment. It is sold as a standalone solution or pre-integrated with ALIP, Accenture's robust, configurable and scalable software suite that offers life insurance and annuity carriers of all sizes solutions for product development, new business, underwriting, and policy administration.
About Accenture Accenture is a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company, with approximately 319,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries. Combining unparalleled experience, comprehensive capabilities across all industries and business functions, and extensive research on the world's most successful companies, Accenture collaborates with clients to help them become high-performance businesses and governments. The company generated net revenues of US$30.0 billion for the fiscal year ended Aug. 31, 2014. Its home page is www.accenture.com.
Accenture Software combines deep technology acumen with industry knowledge to develop differentiated software products. It offers innovative software-based solutions to enable organizations to meet their business goals and achieve high performance. Its home page is www.accenture.com/software. The Accenture Life Insurance Platform is part of Accenture Life Insurance Business Services, a business service within Accenture's Financial Services operating group. By applying its extensive industry knowledge to continuously enhance its software, Accenture helps insurers reduce operating costs, manage risk and drive growth through improved product development, enhanced policy administration and distribution, and through technology platform consolidation and modernization. Its home page is www.accenture.com/lifesoftware.
About SundaySky SundaySky, the creator of SmartVideo, helps customer-centric brands tell stories with personalized, real-time video experiences at every stage of the customer lifecycle. The SmartVideo lifecycle marketing platform generates hundreds of thousands of SmartVideos daily, powering customer acquisition, support, growth and loyalty initiatives for leaders in e-commerce, telecommunications, insurance, banking and travel. SundaySky customers have proven that SmartVideo viewers are more engaged, profitable and loyal, as program performance is measurable and optimized for incremental impact on key business metrics.
#1 Shared Publisher on Facebook Announces Series B Funding, Expanding WW offices
New York, NY and TEL AVIV, ISRAEL– March 18, 2015 – Playbuzz, the company behind the world's leading platform for online content engagement and social distribution, announced today that it has raised $16 million in Series B financing. The round was led by venture capital fund 83North, with additional investment from Saban Capital and participation of existing investors Carmel Ventures and FirstTime Ventures. The new investment will be used to expand the company's global operations, enrich the variety of formats available on the platform and empower online publishers with extended authoring, distribution and monetization capabilities. In addition to its New York Headquarters, PlayBuzz is opening offices in Asia and Europe.
Founded in 2012 by Shaul Olmert and Tom Pachys, Playbuzz enables publishers, bloggers, marketers and brands to connect with audiences in a meaningful and share-worthy way, through interactive storytelling in snackable formats such as quizzes, lists, surveys, ranking and more. Within one year of its launch, the Playbuzz platform has attracted a rapidly growing community of thousands of publishers and content creators who author, embed and distribute compelling, fun content optimized for user engagement and social sharing. Playbuzz is seeing over 80 million monthly unique visitors and has been ranked the #1 most shared publisher on Facebook for four consecutive months according to NewsWhip.
"The immense popularity of social media has disrupted the digital publishing industry", said Shaul Olmert, Playbuzz Founder & CEO. "Playbuzz's free platform enables content owners to rely on its proven, ready-made content formats, and deliver content items that are ideal for their target audience, for cross platform adaptability and for social sharing."
"Playbuzz's dramatic growth and fast adoption points to the market's thirst for a scalable platform to create viral audience engagement" said Arnon Dinur, Partner at 83North, who has joined Playbuzz's board of directors following the investment. "We are thrilled to invest in this category leader, whose meteoric rise in popularity has made it the destination of choice for publishers seeking to engage today's always-connected, always-evolving digital audiences."
About Playbuzz
Playbuzz is a free content platform that enables publishers, bloggers and brands to create, distribute and embed quizzes, polls, lists and other playful formats of engaging content on any website or mobile app. The world's leading publishers use the Playbuzz platform to engage users, increase web traffic, boost their reach, and optimize content for maximum social interaction and shares. For the past four months, the NewsWhip index has ranked Playbuzz as the most shared publisher on Facebook, globally. To date, the Playbuzz network of partner publishers and creators, has distributed content powered by the platform to some 500 million audience members.
For more information please visit http://publishers.playbuzz.com or create your own playful content at www.playbuzz/create.com and follow us on Twitter @play_buzz.
About 83North
83North, formerly Greylock IL, is a global venture capital firm with more than $550 million under management. The fund invests in exceptional European and Israeli entrepreneurs, across all stages of consumer and enterprise companies. With offices in London and Tel-Aviv, 83North is the sum of the latitudes of these two main hubs of operation.
For more information visit www.83north.com and follow us on Twitter @83NorthVC
Contact Information:
Sarah Warshawsky
Yallo, a company reinventing the mobile phone call experience, announced today the closing of $4 million in Series A funding, led by Carmel Ventures, a member of the Viola Group. Shlomo Dovrat, Co-Founder and General Partner at Carmel led the investment and has joined the Company's board of directors.
Yallo is a B2C communications provider that will make you fall in love with the phone call again. Yallo stands for awesome conversations that are more effective, more social, and more fun than the phone calls we knew until now.
By putting personal customer identity, rich functional capabilities and technological flexibility at the core of its platform, the company is creating the next generation of communication experiences and spearheading a new era of consumer focused innovation.
The company was founded in 2012 by Tal Elyashiv and Yosi Taguri and currently has 15 employees at its headquarters in Tel Aviv, Israel.
Tal Elyashiv, CEO of Yallo: "Having spent over two years building out the infrastructure and capabilities enabling our product roadmap and long-term vision, as well as some promising initial test releases, we're thrilled to join forces with one of Israel's premier VCs as we take our next steps forward. We believe the world is ready for a new category of communication experiences that is rich, personal and adaptive to the changing ways in which we live, work and play."
Shlomo Dovrat, Co-Founder and General Partner at Carmel Ventures added: "Carmel is one of the earliest investors in the mobile technologies space in Israel, and has been investing in this sector since 2000. We are excited to partner with the Yallo team on their journey as they aim to transform the communications experience, bringing new innovative consumer applications to an industry poised for disruption."
Yosi Taguri, CTO of Yallo added: "Before Yallo, the phone call was a vestige of the past, failing to keep up with the way we communicate today: in groups; with messaging that lets us get someone's attention even when they're busy; with precision; with fun and personalization. Yallo makes all that possible. It is turning the phone call into a platform for entertainment, personalization, organization, storage, and a tool for radical efficiency."
About Yallo
Yallo, founded in 2012 by Tal Elyashiv and Yosi Taguri, is reinventing the mobile phone experience. Yallo transforms the phone call from the inside out. Once a user downloads Yallo, they can do things like easily record, search and replay calls, reach people even when they are on another call, tag calls, own multiple numbers, never lose a call when they are temporarily out of reception, receive calls on devices of their choice, and much more.
Yallo has existing customers worldwide and is about to release it's next generation product line. For an early bird registration and 3 free months subscription, visit www.yallo.com
Cloud project management firm Clarizen has announced the spring 2015 release of the Clarizen V6 software.
The company, which is based in the US and is expanding rapidly in the UK with customers ranging from the NHS to BarclayCard and Hays Recruitment, updates its software every three months.
The latest release includes a number of new features, most notably a reports and dashboards feature that provides insights on key data without the need for third-party business analytics providers.
The graphics showing the data can be shared with other staff members and clients outside the organisation, even if they do not have a Clarizen account, the company said.
Clarizen announced the details at the first Clarizen@Work2015 conference in San Francisco, where the company also revealed an extension of its collaboration with Box for document hosting.
This means that staff working on Clarizen for project management can provide access to content hosted in Box, so that the necessary documents can be accessed easily without "cluttering up" the Clarizen platform.
Russell Henley, head of strategic accounts for the UK at Clarizen, said that the company, which began operating in the UK 18 months ago, is seeing good growth from firms looking to bring collaboration, project management and social services together.
"Most businesses have islands of activity with information in different systems that doesn't link together so people don't know who is doing what," he said.
"Clarizen brings this together so people get a single view into their project management and who is working on what to help improve efficiencies."
The company has around 50 clients in the UK with over 5,000 staff using the platform.
One major customer is the NHS. Alison Foster, quality director for NHS Aylesbury Vale Clinical Commissioning Group, explained that moving to Clarizen had brought several benefits.
Specifically, she said that it had helped staff forced together as part of the move from Primary Care Trusts to Clinical Commissioning Groups in 2013 by giving them a single platform to work on.
Today, enSilo, a data exfiltration prevention vendor, launches into the international cybersecurity market with a real-time data exfiltration prevention platform to address the evolving nature of the cyber kill chain. enSilo, founded in 2014, raised its Seed funding from Carmel Ventures, a leading Israeli VC firm and member of the Viola Group.
Given the constant and chronic nature of today's cyber-attacks, enSilo reverses the traditional perspective on threats by looking at the end of the kill chain, where exfiltration occurs, rather than the beginning. enSilo's application agnostic platform analyzes communication requests at the operating system (OS) level to enforce the anti-exfiltration policies already on connection establishment requests. The company's solution enables organizations from all verticals to prevent business critical data from being stolen from the organization by advanced attackers even in the face of the persistent, chronic, advanced attacks. With its virtual patching against targeted attacks, enSilo enables employees to continue working, even with the endpoint is infected.
As a seasoned security professional, CEO of enSilo, Roy Katmor, is known for his ability to combine strong technical knowledge with proven sales and marketing capabilities. Prior to enSilo, Katmor led Akamai's security strategy as the company's Sr. Director, Security Product Strategy, where he focused on positioning Akamai as a security innovator during a transitional time for the company. In addition, Katmor managed Imperva's data security technical product management and architecture.
"The traditional defense-in-depth approach against advanced targeted threats has resulted in too many alerts for security professionals to handle. The constant infiltration nature of today's threats led organizations into a "Whack-a-Mole" state where they are pre-destined to lose the game," said Roy Katmor, CEO of enSilo. "By reversing the cyber kill chain defense model, enSilo is able to prevent - in real time - only active exfiltration attempts by targeted attackers. Thus, enSilo generates only one alert per one active threat while allowing organizations to continue operating as usual."
"Organizations today are under constant and chronic attack at some level. All are faced with the real threat of their most valued resources being stolen through one or more of a variety of sophisticated methods. Defending against data exfiltration is at the core of security prevention and should be considered for any environment to mitigate these threats while maintaining "business as usual" operations," said David Monahan, EMA.
Ronen Nir, General Partner at Carmel Ventures who joined the Company's board of directors added: "We at Carmel Ventures, are excited to partner with the exceptional founding team of enSilo that brings a unique approach to the growing Advanced Persistent Attack problem."
To learn more about enSilo, please visit: http://www.enSilo.com
About enSilo
enSilo offers a real-time exfiltration prevention platform. The company was founded on the recognition that targeted attacks are similar to chronic diseases where organizations that have made responsible and sustained investments in attack detection continue to be compromised. In the same way chronically-ill patients are treated to control the disease and increase longevity, organizations must deal in real-time with a persistently compromised network. To that effect, enSilo prevents the consequences of an advanced targeted attack, namely, the theft of valuable data. enSilo has developed a platform which accurately distinguishes legitimate connections from malicious ones, already on initial connection establishment. Our solution provides virtual patching against advanced targeted threats enabling employees to keep working as usual while a device compromise is resolved.
The company is headed by highly respected security veterans from leading private and public sector companies, including Imperva, Akamai, EMC and Rafael. enSilo is financially-backed by Carmel Ventures.
Following the move to launch its event-based behaviour focused analytics platform in the UK, big data analytics firm CoolaData is set to host an open event in London.
The event, which will be held next week, will see CoolaData's CEO Tomer Ben Moshe present alongside 90min's CEO Asaf Peled. Together they will explain how to take funnel analysis to the next level.
CoolaData uses funnels, along side other behavioral analysis tools, to analyze its user's success in completing a certain flow or process, understand where users are churning and to see the effects of improvements they integrate into their processes.
The event takes place on Tuesday March 10 at the Barclays accelerator, 69-89 Mile End Road, Whitechapel, London, E1 4TT.
New York – March 4, 2015 – Nielsen today announced that it has completed its acquisition of eXelate, a leading provider of data and technology to facilitate the buying and selling of advertising across programmatic platforms. This acquisition allows Nielsen to enable its clients to make better and faster marketing and media decisions.
With the acquisition of eXelate, Nielsen clients gain the ability to activate in real-time Nielsen audience insights as well as eXelate's aggregated consumer segments from over 200 data providers. eXelate's advanced technology leverages data to inform the highest quality programmatic buying decisions in the marketplace.
"This acquisition creates a tremendous opportunity for Nielsen in the programmatic media ecosystem," said Steve Hasker, Global President, Nielsen. "Adding eXelate's solutions to the Nielsen family furthers our ability to help marketers improve the effectiveness of their advertising campaigns and to help media companies better sell their content."
eXelate aggregates and distributes third-party online data, composed of premium demographic, interest, and intent data from over 200 online and offline data providers. Nielsen intends to further develop and expand eXelate's already rapidly-growing data marketplace and innovative technology solutions.
"eXelate's advanced data solutions, innovative technology platform, and talented team of technologists will be a strong addition to the Nielsen family," said Brian West, Chief Operating Officer, Nielsen. "Privacy is a priority for both Nielsen and eXelate. We will work closely with the eXelate team and continue to build privacy protections into all Nielsen products and solutions."
"eXelate's mission is to power the digital marketing ecosystem with data and insights to better inform the buying and selling of advertising," said Mark Zagorski, CEO, eXelate. "We are excited for the opportunity to accelerate our business by taking this next step with our longtime collaborator Nielsen."
eXelate is a member of the Network Advertising Initiative, Interactive Advertising Bureau, TRUSTe, Council for Accountable Advertising, and Evidon's Open Data Partnership, and these affiliations will remain in effect.
BARCELONA, Spain — Perfecto Mobile, the world's leader in mobile app quality, today previews LocalLink, a new extension to its Continuous Quality Lab that addresses location-based quality needs and testing of Internet of Things (IoT), at Mobile World Congress. LocalLink expands test coverage and capabilities, mitigates risks that businesses face in releasing faulty apps, and improves the velocity of the app delivery process to accelerate overall time to market.
Perfecto Mobile's LocalLink connects devices in-hand, to the cloud-based Continuous Quality Lab, allowing organizations to test their apps anywhere they choose while centrally managing all devices, hosted and local, in one integrated environment. LocalLink gives teams the flexibility to add devices to their existing cloud as needed, while still experiencing the benefits of the Continuous Quality Lab. In addition, LocalLink allows for testing IoT, which often requires proximity to the device during operation (due to connecting via Bluetooth or WiFi).
"We are experiencing a revolution in the way companies create engagement through digital experiences for their customers. The need for flexibility in quality labs is critical to ensuring a flawless customer experience with any IoT device or location-based app," said Roi Carmel, Senior Vice President of Product and Strategy. "We're excited to be the first to introduce a truly flexible hybrid cloud test lab that addresses location-based use cases and IoT. We are evolving with the mobile device market in order to attain the best test coverage, mitigate risk for our customers and help accelerate the software development lifecycle to meet time-to-market demands."
In order to manage risks associated with poor app quality, it is important for enterprises to select a testing lab and platform that supports a continuous quality process and can be highly customized to address needs across a variety of use cases. LocalLink can be customized for:
According to the report titled Predicts 2015: Internet of Things, published December 30, 2014, "Gartner's assessment of the huge potential of the Internet of Things (IoT) is reflected in its forecast of a cumulative 25 billion things to be shipped by the year 2020, in industries ranging from automotive to food and beverage services. This potential partially obscures IoT contradictions, as it is both emergent and has been around awhile." The release of LocalLink addresses the unanswered need for quality in such an evolving market.
LocalLink will be made generally available next month. To learn more about LocalLink, please visit http://blog.perfectomobile.com/2015/02/27/product-preview-local-link/ and see a demo at Mobile World Congress, Hall 7 702MR.
About Perfecto Mobile
Perfecto Mobile, the world's leader in mobile app quality, provides a hybrid cloud-based Continuous Quality Lab that enables mobile app development and testing teams to deliver better apps faster. The Continuous Quality Lab supports testing processes earlier and more often in the development cycle, giving way to faster feedback and improved time to market. Users can access an exhaustive selection of real mobile devices connected to live networks around the world and leverage them for testing and monitoring throughout the mobile application development lifecycle – from development, functional and performance testing to monitoring and support.
More than 1,500 customers, including 50% of the Fortune 500 across the banking, insurance, retail, telecommunications and media industries rely on Perfecto Mobile to deliver optimal mobile app functionality and end user experiences, ensuring their brand's reputation, establishing loyal customers, and continually attracting new users. For more information about Perfecto Mobile visit www.perfectomobile.com or follow us on Twitter at @PerfectoMobile.
Even if you've never heard of PlayBuzz, you've probably come across its end product. Its platform is behind such Facebook quizzes as "Which Disney Mom Are You?" and lists like "18 Photos That Prove That Online Dating Is Terrifying." The company, thanks to the virality of such content, has become the most-shared publisher on Facebook -- yes, topping even BuzzFeed. And it's done so without paying for most of the content it publishes. That's starting to change.
Commonly called a "BuzzFeed clone," PlayBuzz has parlayed its quizzes and listicles into Facebook popularity. In January people shared more PlayBuzz stories on Facebook than any other publisher, according to social content analytics firm NewsWhip. But PlayBuzz, which launched in January 2014, doesn't consider itself a publisher.
"We're not a publisher in our DNA. We don't have an editorial staff," said PlayBuzz CEO Shaul Olmert, son of former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert.
Mr. Olmert isn't exaggerating much when he says PlayBuzz doesn't have an editorial staff. The 50-person company does have an internal content team of seven employees, but that staff typically handles content moderation and trains publishing and brand partners on how to create content on PlayBuzz.
PlayBuzz's content staff will sometimes publish articles to test new pre-formatted article templates, like one that enables people to create trivia posts, but it only accounts for 2% of the content posted to PlayBuzz, Mr. Olmert said; eight months ago the company said the figure was 10%. PlayBuzz's community of 5,000 creators account for the remaining 98% of its content, using the site's several article templates to create their own quizzes and listicles that are published on PlayBuzz.
As the amount of user-generated content on PlayBuzz has grown, so has its traffic. In January 2015, 14.7 million people in the U.S. visited PlayBuzz's site on their desktop computers, tablets or smartphones, according to comScore. That traffic has grown by 201% since May 2014, the earliest month for which figures were available. PlayBuzz's internal figures claim the site received 80 million unique visitors around the world in January, Mr. Olmert said.
"This is a way for PlayBuzz to hedge their business model," said eMarketer analyst Paul Verna. Like most publishers, PlayBuzz relies on people sharing its articles to Facebook and people clicking on those Facebook links to read the articles on PlayBuzz. But it's just as reliant on people to create those articles. "I think it's part-and-parcel to make the people who contribute invested," he said.
In order to pay these people, ad-supported PlayBuzz will need to improve what it offers advertisers. Right now the site carries so-called "remnant" ads sold through automated ad auctions that typically prize the ad's audience over its surrounding content. This ad-network revenue generates "decent money," Mr. Olmert said, noting that the company is profitable. However it was never PlayBuzz's intended revenue stream and likely couldn't sustain the company's revenue-sharing plans.
"We started as a pure [business-to-business] play. The dream was to be used by thousands of different publishers and make money by charging them for premium services," Mr. Olmert said. The strategy has half-worked. Tens of thousands of publishers including NBC, AOL and Yahoo create content on PlayBuzz or embed the site's stories on their own sites. But those publishers only bring in a minority of PlayBuzz's traffic, he said. People unexpectedly gravitated to the site on their own.
Payoneer Inc., a leading online payments company transforming the way businesses and professionals send and receive cross-border payments, has appointed Neil Platt, former SVP, Payments at Fiserv and EVP of CashEdge, as Chief Revenue Officer.
Mr. Platt joins Payoneer with an extensive background in payments. In more than 10 years at CashEdge, he grew the company from a pre-revenue startup to an industry leader, serving most of the large banks in the U.S., including seven of the top 10. After Fiserv acquired CashEdge in 2011, Platt stayed on at Fiserv as SVP, Payments, where he led the integration and roll-out of CashEdge products to thousands of Fiserv clients. Earlier in his career, Platt was a consultant with McKinsey & Company.
In his new role at Payoneer, Platt will lead all revenue-generating functions, including sales, marketing, account management, product management and business development. He will be responsible for driving Payoneer's continued success by developing and implementing new growth strategies and effectively managing the company's top-line expansion.
"Payoneer is transforming cross-border business payments globally and we were looking for a creative, experienced executive to help us continue our rapid growth," said Scott Galit, CEO of Payoneer. "We're very excited to have Neil bring his expertise in managing fast-growing payments companies to Payoneer."
In 2014 Payoneer was recognized for the third consecutive year by the Deloitte Fast 500 for 762% growth over the past five years, as well as ranked in the top 100 financial services companies for the second year in a row by the Inc. 5000.
"Having spent close to 20 years in the financial technology industry, I've witnessed several generations of payments innovation as the business has moved online," said Platt. "Payoneer has proven to be a leader in cross-border payments innovation, and the company's immense growth mirrors that. I'm thrilled to join the team to help them drive continued growth and manage their ongoing success."
To learn more about how Payoneer is empowering global commerce with cross-border payment services, visit the Payoneer website.
Samanage, the leading provider of cloud-based enterprise service desk software, today announced it has been named by AlwaysOn as one of the 2015 OnCloud 50 Companies to Watch.
The private companies on the sixth annual AlwaysOn OnCloud 50 Companies to Watch (formerly OnDemand 50 Companies to Watch) are recognized for the creative and innovative ways they are bringing cloud technology into businesses around the world.
"We are honored to be recognized among the innovative companies on the OnCloud 50 Companies to Watch," said Doron Gordon, CEO, Samanage. "As one of the top companies shaking up the cloud-based software space, we continue to build momentum and deliver enterprise service management software that quickly drives value by connecting people with the key business services they use every day."
Samanage was selected based on a set of five criteria: innovation, market potential, commercialization, stakeholder value and media buzz. The companies making the list were selected by a panel of investors, bankers, journalists and industry experts around the globe.
This recognition builds on other recent accolades from AlwaysOn. In 2014, Samanage was named as an AlwaysOn Global 250 winner, and recognized as one of the OnDemand 2014 Top 100 Companies to Watch.
The AlwaysOn Top Companies Showcase will be held February 26, 2015 in San Mateo, CA.
About Samanage Samanage is enterprise service desk software that manages service relationships in the company and helps get work done. Samanage delivers an exceptional user experience with beautiful software that people love to use. Instantly deployed and continuously updated in the cloud, Samanage service and asset management software lets you quickly drive business value by connecting your people with the key business services they use every day.
Clarizen, the leader in enterprise work collaboration software, today announced record-setting growth during the fourth quarter of 2014. The company delivered on its enterprise enablement vision and "white glove customer experience" focus with significant growth numbers, customer wins and employee additions.
Clarizen accelerated its expansion in the enterprise, reporting its largest revenue quarter in company history. The company has doubled the number of enterprise customers with more than $100,000 annual recurring revenue (ARR) in 2014, and services revenue also doubled year-over-year. Clarizen also expanded its customer support focus, now with support teams in three locations worldwide. As a result, the company has improved customer response times by more than 300 percent.
"Clarizen's commitment to fulfilling its 'enterprise enablement' vision paid off during the fourth quarter. We deliver enterprise-grade technology to enable organic innovation in the modern workplace through transparency and collaboration," said Avinoam Nowogrodski, CEO, Clarizen. "As the numbers show, our customers are embracing Clarizen as the preferred work collaboration platform for the enterprise."
Additional Company-Related Highlights:
For more Clarizen company and product-related updates, visit: http://www.clarizen.com/about-us.html. The company will showcase its enterprise customers at its upcoming conference, Clarizen@Work 2015, which will be held March 8-10 at the InterContinental San Francisco.
About ClarizenClarizen is a work collaboration platform that helps companies get work done faster. The company's enterprise-class work collaboration and project management solutions harness the power of the cloud to get work done efficiently, effectively and with better results. Fast to deploy and easy to use, Clarizen is redefining enterprise collaboration by connecting social context with tasks and projects to drive increased productivity and profitability. Clarizen fuels the high-performance teams of more than 2,300 organizations across 76 countries, including dozens of the Fortune 500. Most recently, Gigaom Research rated Clarizen at the top in its Sector RoadMap: process-based collaboration in 2014 report. Founded in 2006, Clarizen is privately held with offices in San Mateo, California and Hod Hasharon, Israel and London, UK. For more information, visit www.clarizen.com.
Perfecto Mobile, the world's leader in mobile app quality, today announced that 2014 was the best year since the Company's inception. The company experienced a 100 percent increase in annual revenue and doubled its customer base over 2013. Perfecto Mobile executives attributed the company's continued growth to the criticality of mobile apps, as well as the increased importance of integrating testing earlier in the mobile app development lifecycle, which customers can now do with Perfecto Mobile's new Continuous Quality Lab. The Company also opened a new state-of-the-art data center in Phoenix, Ariz. to serve its enterprise customers.
Perfecto Mobile doubled its employee growth in 2014 and plans to add 70 new positions in 2015. The Company is currently hiring for a variety of positions across the United States, United Kingdom and Israel; listings can be found here.
"Perfecto Mobile's continued growth affirms our investment in the company. In answering the demand from enterprises to ensure the quality of applications, the Continuous Quality Lab provides a scalable, open platform that is adaptable to the constantly changing mobile market," said Dave Fachetti, Managing Director at Globespan Capital Partners. "The Company's strong leadership team has a firm pulse on this multibillion dollar mobile app quality market and leads the way with its innovative solutions."
Continuing its growth path, Perfecto Mobile established a new state of the art U.S. data center in Phoenix, Ariz. boasting 10,000 square feet of space and an initial 1,500 mobile devices equipped for app testing. This newest data center joins Perfecto Mobile's expanding global presence with a sixth office in Germany and data centers across the U.S., UK, Canada, Brazil, Mexico, France, Germany, Switzerland and Israel. The company also signed more than 110 new customers within the last quarter of 2014 and currently hosts a customer base that includes 1,500 organizations across the banking, insurance, retail, telecommunications and media industries, including Paychex, Weight Watchers, Prudential, Verizon, Blue Cross Blue Shield and T-Mobile and top names in Fortune 100/500.
"2014 was truly a banner year for our company. With the focus on maintaining consistent brand reputation through the delivery of business-critical mobile apps, enterprises are looking for ways to constantly improve the quality of their apps starting early in the SDLC," said Eran Yaniv, CEO of Perfecto Mobile. "Our mission has always been to provide our customers with the best technology, delivering quality applications that exceed end users' expectations – and our efforts are paying off. Our record-breaking year is a reflection of enterprises embracing Continuous Quality to deliver better quality apps faster, and is a great precursor to the growth we will experience in 2015."
In 2014, Perfecto Mobile raised $20 million in growth equity funding to grow its sales & marketing organizations, and innovate and expand its Continuous Quality Lab offering and associated services. This resulted in multiple industry accolades, including the 2014 SD Times 100, Red Herring Top 100 Global, The Mobility Tech Zone Product of the Year, Network Products Guide 2014 Gold Hot Company, On Demand Top 100 "Ones to Watch," Mobile Village Mobile Shining Star, the Continuous Quality Lab was also named a finalist for "Best in Mobile" Cloud solution for the Cloud Awards and CTO Yoram Mizrachi was an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of Year award finalist.
As the provider of choice for dozens of participating stations, networks, and NFL teams, 85 LiveU units transmitted 4,460 GB of data and 1,785 hours of video for the event By PR Newswire
LiveU, the pioneer and leader in IP-based live video services and broadcast solutions for acquisition, management and distribution, today announced it supported its largest Super Bowl deployment to date, with a 70% increase in the number of LiveU field units used in Phoenix, AZ compared to last year's event. 85 LiveU field units were in use to cover Super Bowl week XLIX and additional events in Phoenix, including the Pro Bowl, Media Day, Fan Fests, the Phoenix Open, and the Big Game itself. This included rights-holders and other broadcast networks, local affiliates from across the US, several NFL teams, and international networks. The units performed exceptionally well throughoutthe week in Phoenix. LiveU also secured two dedicated hotspots in downtown Phoenix for the exclusive use of its customers, giving them an extra layer of redundancy. LiveU's professional services team was onsite throughout the week to provide 24/7 service and support, as needed.
Since the first appearance of LiveU's cellular bonding technology at the 2010 Super Bowl, LiveU has reported accelerated growth of the technology's adoption each year. LiveU attributes this increase in demand for Super Bowl coverage to the following primary factors:
"Fans crave sports-related content. Over the past few years we've seen demand for content increase, and both traditional and online media increasing their amount of coverage to maintain a competitive edge and to cross-promote their other assets" said Ken Zamkow, LiveU's VP Marketing, Americas. "LiveU is helping fuel this increase in live programming by offering very cost-effective and easy-to-use tools for video transmission and management."
Photos from Super Bowl XLIX can be seen here: Game Day Pictures, Media Day XLIX and Super Bowl Week.
LiveU will present its full range of portable uplink solutions at the NAB Show, April 13-16, at the Las Vegas Convention Center, booth number SU4405. If you are interested in visiting at the show, contact firstname.lastname@example.com.
About LiveULiveU is the pioneer in IP-based live video services and solutions for acquisition, management and distribution. LiveU's award-winning technology enables live video transmission from any location around the world with lightweight, easy-to-use equipment. From backpacks to smartphones, and satellite/cellular hybrid vehicles to external antenna solutions, LiveU offers a complete range of devices for live video coverage anytime, anywhere. In addition, LiveU offers extensive cloud-based management and video distribution solutions. With top-tier customers in 60+ countries, LiveU's solutions are being utilized for breaking and developing news, and high-profile events such as the FIFA World Cup, Winter and Summer Olympic Games, Presidential Campaigns, Super Bowls, US Collegiate Championships, and red-carpet events. LiveU's solutions include multiple 4G LTE/3G, HSPA+, WiMAX and WiFi cellular links, which are optimized for maximum video quality based on the available network conditions. For more information, visit www.liveu.tv, or follow us on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, or Instagram.
TRITON DIGITAL has entered into an exclusive partnership with EXELATE to deliver the first-ever streaming audio Data Management Platform (DMP). The new platform will enhance the ability of ad buyers to reach their desired audiences with targeted audio campaigns via mobile or desktop.
"TRITON and EXELATE are breaking totally new ground within the programmatic audio advertising industry with the launch of the first audio-focused DMP," said EXELATE CEO MARK ZAGORSKI. "This partnership is crucial for ad buyers and marketers, as it will empower them to make smarter programmatic audio ad buys and execute cross-device and multi-channel campaigns that include mobile, audio, video, and display. EXELATE's ability to capture, manage, and activate billions of data points across all channels and devices will power a highly customized ad experience for TRITON's customers and advertisers."
"Digital audio has become an important piece of the digital advertising mix, particularly as more and more consumer attention is captured in a mobile context. Until now audio has not been available as part of a multi-channel programmatic buy," said TRITON DIGITAL COO MIKE AGOVINO. "Beginning today, digital audio can garner a larger share of the market by attracting a piece of the larger multi-channel programmatic budget."
Rapid growth continues; wins Deloitte Fast 500 for third consecutive year, and one of Top 100 financial services companies in Inc. 5000 for second consecutive year. Global expansion continues with strategic funding, new offices in Silicon Valley and Asia, and launch of Payoneer Ambassador Program.
Payoneer Inc., a leading global payments company, today announced several 2014 company milestones as it looks ahead to continued growth and expansion in 2015.
Based on the strength of its mission to empower global commerce by connecting businesses, professionals, countries and companies, Payoneer has experienced one of its most successful years to-date. Top milestones from 2014 include:
o Ping An Group, a leading Chinese financial services providero Nyca Partners, a venture capital and advisory firm with significant financial services and technology expertiseo Susquehanna Growth Equity, LLC, a private equity firm focused on the financial services industry and an affiliate of Susquehanna International Group, LLP
o Deloitte Fast 500 – Third year in a row with 762% growth over past 5 yearso Inc. 5000 – Ranked in the top 100 Financial Services companies for the second year in a rowo 2015 Paybefore Award – Winner of the Think Local, Pay Global award
o Hans Morris, former Citi executive and Visa Presidento Lazaro Campos, former SWIFT CEO
o Airbnb, Wish and many more industry-leading marketplaces, enterprises and language service providerso Selected as a global payments provider by Google for Trusted Stores program, which helps customers identify merchants they can trust online
"There's a lot to be excited about at Payoneer with much more to come as we look ahead to 2015," said Scott Galit, CEO, Payoneer. "With Payoneer's fast, flexible, secure and low-cost solutions, we're poised to continue building momentum as we enable and accelerate cross-border growth for more businesses and professionals in all corners of the world. Our innovative payment solutions have enabled us to achieve our 2014 milestones, and our commitment to customer experience, compliance and risk management positions us for sustainable growth."
To learn more about how Payoneer is empowering global commerce with cross-border payment services for business, visit the Payoneer website.
About PayoneerPayoneer empowers global commerce by connecting businesses, professionals, countries and currencies with its innovative cross-border payments platform. In today's borderless digital world, Payoneer enables millions of businesses and professionals from more than 200 countries to reach new audiences by facilitating seamless, cross-border payments. Additionally, thousands of leading corporations including Airbnb, Elance-oDesk, Getty Images and Google rely on Payoneer's mass payout services.
HARMAN International Industries, Incorporated (NYSE:HAR), the premier audio, visual, infotainment and enterprise automation group, today announced the acquisition of Israeli-based Red Bend Software, a leading provider of software management technology for connected devices, and over-the-air (OTA) software and firmware upgrading services. Building upon Red Bend's strength in the mobile and carrier markets, HARMAN will accelerate Red Bend's growth in the automotive space and will position Red Bend software as the de facto standard for OTA software services for mobile devices and automotive applications.
The transaction is valued at $170 million, including approximately $99 million in stock and $71 million in cash. The number of HARMAN shares issued will be based on the volume weighted average trading price 60 days prior to January 21. Under the agreement, the selling stockholders of Red Bend are eligible for a cash earn-out of up to $30 million in the first quarter of calendar year 2017 based on the achievement of certain performance milestones.
Red Bend is the world's leading provider of the most advanced OTA solutions, serving top handset manufacturers and mobile carriers with more than two billion Red Bend-enabled devices in the market globally. Sophisticated software systems like Red Bend are the cornerstone of a steadily increasing number of integrated and interoperating devices, and managing updates for firmware, middleware, third party apps, and other services.
"This acquisition of Red Bend, a true pioneer in OTA and virtualization technologies for cyber security, adds a critical component to our automotive systems and services portfolio that will essentially future proof software in cars, ultimately making them safer, smarter and more efficient," said Dinesh C. Paliwal, Chairman, President, and CEO of HARMAN. "Together with our Symphony Teleca acquisition, HARMAN now has the essential foundation and deep bench strength for a comprehensive systems and services portfolio. Today marks a huge transformation for HARMAN and further advancement towards delivering consumers a seamless, connected car and connected lifestyle experience."
"With over 15 years of success in delivering world-class over-the-air update solutions to the telecom and mobile markets, we are pleased to bring our proven track record to HARMAN," said Yoram Salinger, President and CEO of Red Bend. "By joining forces with HARMAN, we will accelerate our growth in expanding markets such as the connected car while also continuing to support billions of mobile devices. Beyond mobile, Red Bend and HARMAN will implement OTA software management to enhance infotainment and embedded system performance as well as other in-car ECU-based systems. These solutions will benefit the entire automotive ecosystem through cost savings, increased security and a seamless customer experience."
Red Bend's software management solutions and hypervisor-based virtualization technologies for cyber security are already widely adopted in mobile devices and ideally suited to meet the rising demands of the connected car. By 2020, it is expected that more than 90 percent of vehicles on the road will be connected (Frost and Sullivan). Importantly, Red Bend solutions also serve as critical prerequisites for autonomous driving. By bringing Red Bend under the HARMAN umbrella and driving broad industry usage, HARMAN's combined technology portfolio will seamlessly enable safe, secure OTA updates for a variety of on-board Harman and non-Harman automotive systems – whether embedded or downloaded -- speeding the pace of innovation to automakers and the industry.
The Red Bend acquisition is subject to regulatory approvals and customary closing adjustments. It is expected to close in third quarter of HARMAN's 2015 fiscal year.
Upon close of the transaction, Red Bend will operate within HARMAN as an independent unit led by its existing management team, while benefiting from HARMAN's scale, resources, and deep automotive domain experience. Red Bend will remain dedicated to serving and growing its target markets, including mobile handset OEMs, service providers, semiconductor vendors and tablet manufacturers, as well as its growing base of automotive OEMs and other Tier 1 suppliers.
Conference Call
The Company will host a conference call with the investment community Thursday, January 22 at 10:00 AM EST. To participate, dial 1-800-763-6564 (North America) or 1-212-231-2924 (International), Access Code 21760117.
A replay of the call will also be available following its completion at approximately 1:00 p.m. EST. To listen to the replay, dial 1-800-633-8284 (U.S.) or 1-402-977-9140 (International), Access Code 21760117.
About HARMAN
HARMAN (www.harman.com) designs, manufactures and markets premier audio, visual, infotainment and enterprise automation solutions for the automotive, consumer and professional markets. With leading brands including AKG®, Harman Kardon®, Infinity®, JBL®, Lexicon®, Mark Levinson ® and Revel®, the Company is admired by audiophiles, musicians and the entertainment venues where they perform. HARMAN has a workforce of approximately 16,600 people across the Americas, Europe, and Asia and reported sales of $5.6 billion for the 12 months ended September 30, 2014. The Company's shares are traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol NYSE:HAR.
About Red Bend Software
Red Bend catalyzes change in the connected world. We have been keeping more than two billion mobile, automotive and IoT devices continuously relevant with over-the-air software updates, and with virtualization and device management services. Our robust technology and solution offerings deliver instant market impact — accelerating business results, optimizing performance and improving people's lives. Building on nearly two decades of experience, and on our proven track record working with hundreds of leading global brands, we make it easy for customers across all geographies to optimize deployment of change, and reliably enhance any connected device — regardless of size and complexity — with ever-increasing value. For more information, visit www.redbend.com.
RealMatch, the leading provider of performance-based recruitment advertising solutions, announced today it has closed an additional $8 million in venture capital funding as part of a Series C-1 round led by Edison Partners with participation by Orix Ventures and Carmel Ventures.
RealMatch is on a mission to disrupt the highly fragmented online recruitment industry with the most advanced job matching technology and the only performance-based recruitment advertising network designed to connect employers and job seekers across the Web in the most efficient manner possible.
"RealMatch has quickly become a dominant player in the recruitment advertising space with innovative technology and strong partnerships with leading digital publishers who provide access to a vast pool of employers and talent that reside in their online communities" said Jonathan Bulkeley, Chief Executive Officer at RealMatch. "Additional funding from existing and new investors further validates our model and will help us secure the leadership position in the market.
" David Nevas, Principal at Edison Partners noted, "RealMatch offers the only solution that addresses the profound inefficiencies that have plagued the online recruitment market for years. The company is well-poised to become a market leader, and our additional investment is intended to help the company accelerate its rapid expansion in the market."
The company's revolutionary job matching platform, vast network reach, and real-time performance management capabilities outperform traditional job boards and job aggregator sites by delivering significantly more qualified applicants for employers and a much more rewarding and engaging experience for job seekers.
"RealMatch's rapid growth continues to validate the company's vision and the market demand for their pioneering technology," added Ronen Nir, General Partner, Carmel Ventures. "We look forward to our continued support in the company." Carmel Ventures made its initial investment in RealMatch in 2010.
"We are very excited to have the opportunity to invest in RealMatch at this stage of the company's growth," said William Bishop, Managing Director and Co-Head, Orix Ventures. "We immediately realized the immense value RealMatch brings to the lucrative online recruitment market and the company's potential to disrupt the market."
When asked how the company will use the funds, RealMatch's Chief Financial Officer, Ezra Sofer, stated that the proceeds of this round will be used to support growth in all fields of operations including investment in new products and services to meet the demand for existing and new channels.
About RealMatch:
RealMatch offers digital publishers a superior way to engage and monetize their audiences with its revolutionary white-label recruitment advertising solution that is transforming the $19 billion online recruitment industry. RealMatch's performance-oriented solution is built on the industry's most advanced job matching technology and features predictive performance algorithms and real-time performance monitoring capabilities that automatically create and optimize ad distribution campaigns across the company's vast recruitment ad network called TheJobNetwork™. RealMatch's innovative technology and vast reach to talent across the Web produce unrivaled posting performance and candidate engagement, allowing digital publishers who partner with RealMatch to significantly increase their ad revenue and gain a competitive advantage in their communities with online recruitment.
About Edison Partners:
For 28 years, Edison Partners has been helping CEOs and their executive teams navigate the entrepreneurial journey to becoming successful companies. Through the unique combination of expansion capital and the Edison Edge platform, consisting of strategic advisory, the Edison Director Network, and executive education, Edison employs a holistic approach to nurturing invention and creating value for growth stage businesses ($5 to $20 million in revenue) in financial technology, healthcare IT, enterprise IT, and interactive marketing industries. Edison investment objectives also include: buyouts, recapitalizations, spinouts and secondary stock purchases.
The Edison portfolio has created aggregate market value exceeding $5 billion. Its long-tenured team, based in Lawrenceville, NJ, New York, NY, McLean, VA and Cleveland, OH, manages $928 million in assets throughout the eastern United States.
About Carmel Ventures:
With over $800 million currently under management, many successful exits, and a growing portfolio of promising start-ups, Carmel is among Israel's top-tier venture capital funds. Founded in 2000 by pioneers and leaders of the Israeli high tech industry, Carmel provides significant capital and active, hands-on support through the growth cycle of its portfolio companies and is recognized as a true company-building fund in Israel. Carmel, headquartered in Herzliya, is a member of the Viola Group, Israel's premier technology focused Private Equity group with $2B under management. For more information, please visit www.carmelventures.com and our new blog: www.viola-notes.com.
About Orix Ventures:
ORIX Ventures is dedicated to supporting high-growth companies with a range of debt and equity products and is capable of leading debt or private equity transactions with total commitments as high as $50 million. Since its inception in 2001, ORIX Ventures has invested more than $1.3 billion across more than 120 growth companies throughout the U.S. and Canada. ORIX Ventures is a subsidiary of ORIX USA, a Dallas-based financial services firm with more than 1,400 employees and principal offices in Atlanta; Chicago; Hartford, Conn.; Los Angeles; Minneapolis; New York; San Francisco; Seattle; Washington, D.C.; Frankfurt, Germany; London; and Paris. ORIX USA holds approximately $7 billion of assets and manages an additional $30 billion, approximately. ORIX USA is a wholly owned subsidiary of ORIX Corporation, a Tokyo-based, publicly-owned international financial services company with operations in 36 countries and regions worldwide. ORIX Corporation is listed on the Tokyo (8591) and New York Stock Exchanges (IX). For more information on ORIX USA, visit www.orix.com.
Payoneer Inc., a leading online payments company transforming the way businesses send and receive cross-border payments, has partnered with Bank Asia to help Bangladeshi freelancers receive payments from international companies more quickly, easily and cost-effectively. Payoneer's new online payment gateway opens up local bank withdrawals in Bangladesh, which enables U.S. companies to tap into talent from Bangladesh in a way that was not previously possible. By using Payoneer's payment services, freelancers and business owners can receive payments for services provided internationally directly to their Payoneer account in U.S. dollars and then transfer these funds to their bank account in Bangladesh in a fast, efficient and low-cost way.
Bangladesh is the third-largest freelance market in the world. The country's estimated 500,000 freelancers – including writers, designers, developers, photographers and more – needed an easier way to receive payments for their services from international companies.
"Our goal is simple – to give both professionals in Bangladesh and U.S. businesses the tools they need to connect," said Scott Galit, CEO of Payoneer. "Payoneer and Bank Asia both aim to provide modern and innovative financial services that enable the globalization of business. We're excited to play a role in empowering Bangladeshi talent by connecting them with business opportunities the Internet has created around the world."
On January 8, Payoneer and Bank Asia held a launch ceremony in Dhaka which included Dr. Atiur Rahman, Governor of Bangladesh Bank, the central bank of Bangladesh. The ceremony was also attended by the Chairman of Bank Asia, A. Rouf Chowdhury; the President and Managing Director of Bank Asia, Md. Mehmood Husain; and Mr. Shamim Ahsan, President of the Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services (BASIS), as well as Scott Galit and Patrick de Courcy, Payoneer's Head of Asia Pacific. Over the past month, Payoneer has also hosted two conferences in Dhaka through its Brand Ambassador program, which brought together more than 1,000 participants to learn more about expanding their global businesses.
"The events we hosted in Bangladesh are just another way we're providing professionals and businesses with the tools they need to succeed in the connected business world," said Galit. "On the back end, we provide a simple way for them to receive payments – but there's much more to it. Through our Brand Ambassador program, we give professionals in these dynamic markets tools to network with other freelancers, hear from established speakers and ultimately set them up for wide business success."
Payoneer's Brand Ambassador program has now launched in five countries: Japan, China, Argentina, Pakistan and Bangladesh. The program hosts local events to assist professionals using Payoneer in growing their business. Payoneer is launching the program in 15 additional countries through 2015.
About Bank AsiaBank Asia Limited is one of the leading third generation private commercial banks in Bangladesh. The Bank started its journey in November 1999. Over the years, through dedicated customer service, creating a team of high skilled professional bankers, expansion of branch network and developing a strong IT platform, the Bank has gradually emerged as a highly renowned Bank in the country. For more information, visit http://www.bankasia-bd.com.
About PayoneerPayoneer empowers global commerce by connecting businesses, professionals, countries and currencies with its innovative cross-border payments platform. In today's borderless digital world, Payoneer enables millions of businesses and professionals from more than 200 countries to reach new audiences by facilitating seamless, cross-border payments. Additionally, thousands of leading corporations including Google, Airbnb, Elance-oDesk and Getty Images rely on Payoneer's mass payout services.
Digital content has been an elaborate issue for many sports organizations as the use of technology-based broadcasting becomes ever more apparent in the 21st century. Sports organizations are constantly looking at ways to take advantage of the growing online market for sports content, which gives fans even more access to their favorite teams.
In keeping with online movement, the New York Jets have partnered with LiveU, a company that specializes in providing up-to-date broadcasting and live video transmission around the world. This partnership allows the Jets to instantly upload new content to their website and mobile application for increased content volume on both their website and mobile app.
Weighing 2.2 pounds/1 kilogram, LiveU's LU500 live video backpack offers up to 13 network links, including eight internal cellular modems and proprietary antenna technology, allowing the Jets to upload content without having to worry about cables or satellites. The backpack uses a cloud-based management system to control, monitor, and manage new content.
The decision to partner with LiveU and purchase the LU500 backpack came during the 2014 preseason, when the Jets wanted to capture more of training camp for their online publications. With this purchase, the Jets can record and upload content from anywhere in the stadium, including the stadium tunnels, buses, and sidelines.
With this technology, the Jets will constantly be able to update their online presence, keeping fans engaged with the latest news about the team even during the off-season. This will help the Jets to bridge the gap between the online world and the real world of sports, giving fans a new football experience directly from their homes, with access to the teams inner-workings off of the field as well as on the field, such as practices and locker room coverage.
This technology allows any fan with the mobile app or access to the website direct live video coverage on certain press conferences and pre- and post-game shows.
"Technologies like LiveU make it possible for fans to get exclusive content from behind the scenes that they could never access before," said Ken Zamkow, Vice President of Marketing for LiveU, Americas, Hackensack, N.J.
"Fans get to know their favorite players and coaches up close. This video consumption in turn attracts sponsors, increases fan loyalty and merchandise and ticket sales, and more."
Viola Group, Israel's premier technology oriented private equity investment group with over $2 billion under management, has just launched its brand new content site Viola Notes (www.viola-notes.com). The new blog will tap into the vast knowledge-pool of Viola's investment professionals in an effort to boost transparency and generate discussions that can help empower tech companies for growth.
Viola Group is comprised of four independent funds including: Carmel Ventures – a top tier Venture Capital fund; Viola Credit – a leading equity-based lending fund; Viola Private Equity – a technology focused growth capital and buyout fund.
"Our team here at Viola includes highly experienced individuals who have been in the business of growing businesses for many years and we want to share our collective experience with the wider tech community", said Daniel Cohen, General Partner at Carmel Ventures. "Also, we feel that there's room in the Israeli blogosphere for more forums that deal with subjects uniquely relevant to the Israeli tech industry and we're excited to offer Viola Notes as a platform to share insights and generate discussions."
"We often share our experiences and best practices with members of our portfolio companies and our close network, but it's occurred to us that we lack a forum to share these insights with other members of the broader tech community," said Hila Shitrit Nissim, Marketing Director at Viola Group. "Launching a blog feels like an obvious step for us, especially given the value of original, high-quality content these days."
Viola Notes is aimed at entrepreneurs and business people both in Israel and abroad and will offer insights on trends and topics relating to startups, business growth, investment and more, as well as practical 'how to' style posts.
Viola Group's team members will be the main contributors to the blog, but it will also feature an exciting lineup of guest bloggers from among Viola's over 100 portfolio companies as well as hand-picked industry experts from around the world.
Viola Notes is managed by Noya Lizor, Viola Group's newly appointed Director of Content who was brought in specifically to focus on the group's content marketing activities, which is a first in the local VC landscape. Originally from Israel, Noya spent over 20 years in Australia where she worked in a variety of creative and editorial roles both in publishing and advertising. Her last role before returning to Israel was at McCann Worldgroup (Sydney) and since returning to Israel 6 years ago she has worked in Israel's vibrant startup scene in several senior marketing roles.
"Viola Group is all about empowering tech companies for growth. My vision for this blog is to present highly interesting, useful and hopefully inspirational content, some of which will come from the highly experienced folks at Viola and some from members of the tech community itself whose expertise I feel is particularly relevant to our audience" said Ms. Lizor. "There's lots of terrific content in the pipeline for 2015 and we're looking forward to sharing it with Viola Notes subscribers and followers".
About Viola Group
Viola Group, with over $2 Billion under management, is Israel's premier technology oriented private equity investment group. Viola Group aims to provide long term, world-class returns by identifying and pursuing attractive investment strategies in the vibrant Israeli technology and industry market. Viola Group is comprised of focused separate independent best of class partnerships including Carmel Ventures – a top tier Venture Capital fund; Viola Credit – a leading equity-based lending fund; Viola Private Equity – technology focused growth capital and buyout fund; and Viola Partners – an exclusive investment fund mainly for private investors. The group partnerships have invested and partnered with over 150 companies including: ironSource, Outbrain, Payoneer, Matomy, RRMedia, Telit, BorderFree, Superderivatives, Actimize and more.
For more information please visit: www.viola-group.com
Long Ridge Equity Partners led the round with the participation of TradAir's existing venture capital investors- Carmel Ventures and Genesis Partners; Cliff Lewis Joins as Chairman
London, New York, Tel Aviv xx Jan 2015 – TradAir, a leading provider of foreign exchange trading technology, announced today that it recently closed a $15 million growth equity round led by new investor Long Ridge Equity Partners. TradAir's existing venture capital investors, Carmel Ventures and Genesis Partners, also participated in the round. The new financing positions TradAir to continue its rapid growth and further bolster its technology capabilities. Concurrent with the investment, former Currenex CEO Cliff Lewis will join TradAir as Chairman.
TradAir's technology allows banks and brokers to lead in the global, electronic FX market. TradAir offers a novel end-to-end trading solution that includes a robust rate engine, liquidity aggregator, and front end interface. TradAir's proprietary TLA® (Total Liquidity Analysis) module offers FX e-commerce participants unprecedented vision into deal flows and market liquidity, allowing them to make strategic decisions on pricing and hedging. TradAir is a market leader in HTML5 development, and its' modular technology architecture allows for seamless integration into existing trading infrastructure.
"Given their deep expertise in financial technology and the trading market, we are very excited to partner with Long Ridge," said TradAir CEO Illit Geller. "We have a strong track record of success with our clients and access to additional capital will allow us to continue to grow and deliver market-leading technology to the market."
"We are impressed with the success TradAir's team has achieved over a short period of time," said Jim Brown, Long Ridge's Managing Partner. "The company has developed a strong reputation as a technology leader and client feedback is very positive. We are excited by the opportunity to partner with the TradAir team to build a leading technology business."
Concurrent with Long Ridge's investment, Cliff Lewis will join TradAir as Chairman. Cliff Lewis formerly served as CEO of Currenex, a leading FX trading platform acquired by State Street in 2007. Following the sale of Currenex, Cliff joined State Street as Executive Vice President with responsibility for the electronic trading business (e-Exchange). Cliff is also a management board member for CBOT-EUREX.
"We are delighted to have Cliff join our company as Chairman," said Illit Geller. "Through his impressive 30-year career, he has become a leader in capital markets. His deep domain knowledge, visionary views and extensive relationships will be an invaluable resource to TradAir."
Added Cliff Lewis, "TradAir's IT development capability will be the foundation for success. We'll be focused on helping clients make money by deploying our products as the FX and rates markets continue their rapid evolution."
About TradAir
TradAir is a leading provider of cross asset front office optimization solutions designed to offer financial institutions the ability to enhance their client relationships and participation in the global markets, creating new revenue streams and reducing costs. TradAir provides an end-to-end infrastructure from price generation and dynamic distribution to algo trading optimization solutions utilizing the latest technology. The TradAir solution is modular and seamlessly integrates with existing components, providing the highest level of customization, flexibility and time to market. TradAir has offices in London, New York and Tel Aviv.
Media contact
Brian Andreyko firstname.lastname@example.com
About Long Ridge Equity Partners
Founded in 2007, Long Ridge is a private equity firm focused on the financial services industry. Leveraging deep sector knowledge and an extensive network of industry resources, Long Ridge serves as a value-added partner to high-growth financial services businesses. Over the last decade, Long Ridge's principals have sponsored some of the most successful growth companies in the financial sector, providing strategic resources and capital to drive profitable expansion.
For more information on Long Ridge Equity Partners, please visit www.longridgecap.com
There are a number of companies offering enterprise collaboration products, but Clarizen is among the first to be awarded a patent for its technology.
The patent relates to the company's InterAct email engine which lets users trigger specific project-related actions like approval processes, generating reports, creating new projects and other workflows through their email.
"This patent is an important technical milestone for Clarizen, one that has been in the making for several years," says Avinoam Nowogrodski, founder and CEO of Clarizen. "It underscores the significant investment we have made in continuous innovation to stay one step ahead of customer and market needs. The value the technology delivers is a strategic win for Clarizen's customers, and we look forward to sharing more patented innovations with them in the future".
Clarizen InterAct allows users to use their email as a routing system so they can generate an unlimited number of email addresses and associated actions, business and routing rules. Emails can be sent via Clarizen requesting an updated report and receive an automated reply with the report attached.
Issues can also be submitted to InterAct via email or a form, prompting the issue to be automatically added to the appropriate project with a notification sent to the project manager.
"Email is still by far the most used collaboration tool, but email was not really built to support collaboration (many-to-many). What Clarizen has done with this patent is part of a trend we are seeing where team members are moving from email to more context-based in-app communications," says David Coleman, senior research analyst at Gigaom Research and managing director of Collaborative Strategies, Inc.
You can find more information about InterAct on the Clarizen website.
MetricNet, LLC, leading provider of benchmarks for IT service and support professionals, and Samanage, leading provider of cloud-based service desk software, announced today a partnership that will deliver the first of its kind, SaaS-based real-time benchmarking solution that fully integrates with the Samanage Enterprise Service Desk.
"Samanage Benchmarking will provide real-time performance benchmarks against thousands of service desks worldwide," said Jeff Rumburg, managing partner and co-founder, MetricNet. "It automates data collection, performance reporting, diagnosis, and action planning, and charts your journey to world-class performance. The service utilizes the Samanage product together with MetricNet's consultation will work with customers to identify their KPI's and develop the initial recommendations in terms of improvement opportunities," said Rumburg.
Development will be done to provide recommendations for service desk improvement based on benchmarking results. "Our years of studying the behavior of thousands of service desks across every industry has revealed "cause and effect" relationships between many metrics," said Rumburg. "We will build an intelligent "recommendation engine" that will offer specific actions that can be taken to improve key performance areas," said Rumburg.
"This type of endeavor can only be done when you combine a cloud-based, multi-tenant solution like Samanage with the expertise and robust benchmarking data of MetricNet," said Doron Gordon, CEO, Samanage. "IT service organizations will have the power to measure their performance and develop continuous improvement plans that will move them forward in a much faster time frame," said Gordon.
MetricNet and Samanage both bring unique expertise to the collaboration. Samanage is a fast growth IT service management software provider that is challenging the traditional legacy providers with modern enterprise service desk software that manages service relationships across an organization. Samanage enterprise service desk software is instantly deployed and continuously updated in the cloud. Samanage service and asset management software lets you quickly drive business value by connecting your people with the key business services they use every day.
More than half of the Fortune 500 rely on MetricNet benchmarks to improve and optimize their performance. With a global benchmarking database of more than 3,000 IT service and support benchmarks, MetricNet has the most comprehensive database of process and performance metrics in the industry. Jeff Rumburg is the premier expert in the space. He is the recipient of the 2014 Ron Muns Lifetime Achievement Award for his contributions to the service and support industry, and has served as a service desk and desktop support expert to some of the world's largest corporations, including American Express, Hewlett-Packard, General Motors, and IBM.
"The partnership will give customers a completely new way of measuring themselves against their peer industry groups, and redefine how 'continuous improvement' is done," said Doron Gordon, CEO, Samanage. "Starting first with IT, Samanage Benchmarking will become the industry's first Enterprise Service desk solution powered by a fully integrated continuous improvement engine for the entire organization."
The Vision for Service Desk Benchmarking By providing easier and more accessible benchmarking in real-time, it will allow companies of all sizes to benchmark their service desk performance at the same level of sophistication that was once only possible for larger enterprise organizations.
"When productivity is hampered at the service desk level, the entire organization feels the effect," said Rumburg. "Without the incredible insight provided from benchmarking processes, companies really don't know how to fix what's broken, nor build upon what appears to be working."
Gordon adds that traditional benchmarking models can be very time intensive and haven't been built for the SaaS world of today. "By the time you bring in specialized consultants and get any useful data out of the process and get to work on improvements, months or even years have passed," said Rumburg. "By that time the needle has moved again, and companies are again behind where they need to be."
"We will make benchmarking real time and affordable, said Rumburg. "It will just be part of the way business is done. You will be able to constantly rate and improve yourself. It will give an entirely new meaning to continuous improvement."
About MetricNet MetricNet is the global leader in IT service and support benchmarking. More than half of the Fortune 500 rely on MetricNet benchmarks to improve and optimize their performance. With a global benchmarking database of more than 3,000 IT service and support benchmarks, MetricNet has the most comprehensive database of process and performance metrics in the industry. Visit http://www.metricnet.com
Now Processing 23 Million Signals a Minute in Real-Time, eXelate Provides Marketers With the Industry's Most Scalable Data Management Technology Infrastructure
eXelate, the leading independent data platform, today announced the achievement of a major milestone, having created the 15 trillionth audience segment for the digital marketing ecosystem since its 2008 U.S. launch. Audience segments are a collection of signals which may include demographics, purchase history, web browsing activity or a variety of other behaviors, collected from online (mobile / desktop /video) and offline sources, which are packaged and delivered to affect more targeted advertising. In the past year, eXelate's business has more than tripled; as a result, eXelate now processes 23 million signals each minute, or 375,000 each second.
eXelate's momentum comes at a time when marketers are looking to evolve their capabilities to connect with customers in an increasingly complex, cross screen, on and offline buying journey.
"The demand for our enterprise grade data, data management and measurement solutions extends across many types of customers as volume, speed and scale of processing data have emerged as key competitive advantages for driving real sales results," said Mark Zagorski, CEO of eXelate. "No one is connecting more data of more of the players in the marketing, ad tech and agency worlds than eXelate."
eXelate's massively scaled infrastructure processes consumer attributes and behaviors into audience segments across 5 billion monthly unique devices and their users by working directly with leading brands, hundreds of publishers and offline data sources to analyze, score and package audience data. In parallel, more than 125 marketing platforms choose to synchronize their own user data with eXelate, which continuously updates 3.4 trillion segments per month, 78 million per segment, providing these marketing platforms with the freshest real time audience data.
eXelate is at the core of servicing the digital marketing landscape, including brands, agencies, trading desks, publishers, digital media companies and marketing technology platforms. It puts the power of our advanced data infrastructure, once exclusively reserved for select industry giants, directly into the hands of the marketer.
For more information, visit: http://exelate.com.
About eXelate
eXelate, the leading independent data platform, empowers marketers with better insights and massive reach to more effectively engage consumers. Through eXelate's maX DMP (data management platform), fueled by eXelate's eXchange, first-party data can be managed, modeled, mobilized and measured across video, mobile and display channels. eXelate's eXchange, the largest pool of directly measured consumer data, reaches two billion active users and devices worldwide and includes key purchasing touch points -- online and offline -- from Nielsen, MasterCard Advisors, IXI and many more. As a member of the NAI, IAB, trustE, Council for Accountable Advertising and Evidon's Open Data Partnership, eXelate adheres to privacy compliant advertising practices. For more information, please visit www.eXelate.com or follow @eXelate.
BOSTON & MUNICH--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Testbirds, the leading crowdtesting pioneer in Europe, and Perfecto Mobile, the world's leader in mobile application quality, today announced a partnership that combines their extensive testing expertise to further increase mobile application quality.
"With millions of apps available for download and thousands of different mobile devices on the market, testing mobile applications has become a challenging and time-consuming task. Almost half of application defects are found by end users, and some 58 percent of those defects are reported as user interface issues," said Roi Carmel, Senior Vice President of Product and Strategy at Perfecto Mobile. "Incorporating quality throughout the mobile app lifecycle has never been more crucial than it is today in creating a successful end user experience. We plan on working closely with Testbirds in order to bring together the power of crowdtesting and Perfecto Mobile's Continuous Quality Lab to push the mobile application quality industry to the next level."
Both companies specialize in mobile testing solutions for enterprises to test and optimize their applications. Perfecto Mobile offers the Continuous Quality Lab, their on-demand, cloud-based offering that enables the testing (automated and manual functional testing, monitoring and performance) of mobile apps under any real-world end-user condition throughout all stages of the software development lifecycle. Testbirds provides a crowd of professional testers as well as consumers, who test the applications' usability and functionality under real-life circumstances. The crowd can be accessed via self-service or through a managed testing approach, including professional project managers who ensure quality and evaluate test results.
"We encourage enterprises to utilize different testing techniques throughout the entire development cycle," says Philipp Benkler, Co-founder and Managing Director at Testbirds. "There are many challenges for companies in setting up a holistic mobile testing approach. We want to share our combined expertise and showcase how to gain the best results at different stages of development."
For more information on how to integrate functional testing, performance testing and monitoring with crowdtesting, read the following white paper: Bridging the Essential Gap between Continuous Quality and Crowd Based Testing.
More than 1,500 customers, including 50% of the Fortune 500 across the banking, insurance, retail, telecommunications and media industries rely on Perfecto Mobile to deliver optimal mobile app functionality and end user experiences, ensuring their brand's reputation, establishing loyal customers, and continually attracting new users. For more information about Perfecto Mobile, visit perfectomobile.com or follow us on Twitter at @PerfectoMobile.
About Testbirds GmbH
Testbirds is a crowdtesting service provider headquartered in Munich, with offices in the UK, the Netherlands and Hungary. The company specializes in the testing of mobile apps, websites and other software for the entire device landscape (mobile, desktop, smart TV, wearables etc.) on all major operating systems.
Testbirds uses crowdtesting to facilitate software testing in today's fast-growing world of technology. They hold a worldwide network of testers (crowd) consisting of experts as well as consumers to test software under real world conditions. The crowd finds bugs and gives critical usability feedback, ensuring the highest-possible user experience before launch.
Extensive device ecosystems as well as increased user expectations challenge conventional testing methods. Testbirds offers in-depth and cost-effective quality assurance for web applications and mobiles apps through the crowd on any device, with any target group, at any time. Today, crowdtesting is fast becoming a necessary tool for developers to help improve functionality and overall usability of any application.
Testbirds was founded in 2011 and supported by different institutions and partners. In 2012, the company received a seven-figure seed funding by Walter Beteiligungen und Immobilien AG.
Red Bend Software, the market leader in Mobile Software Management (MSM) with more than 2 billion Red Bend-Enabled™ devices, announced that Spireon, the leading innovator of Mobile Resource Management (MRM) and Business Intelligence Solutions that connect companies to their mobile assets and workforces, has selected Red Bend's over-the-air (OTA) Software Updating Service to update devices across its NSpire M2M Telematics Platform. This cloud-based platform transmits over five billion data points each year into actionable intelligence for Spireon's 1.9 million subscribers.
"Red Bend is known in the mobile, IoT and the automotive industries as the leading provider of an OTA update solution that is secure, reliable and cost-efficient." said Jim Brady, Chief Product Officer at Spireon. "With Red Bend's OTA Software Updating Service, Spireon can ensure the quality, reliability and speed of updates, so our customers can instantly benefit from the latest in features and software updates."
Spireon's award winning NSpire cloud-based M2M Business Intelligence Platform uses a leading-edge network of databases, data centers, web servers and Internet connections to deliver fast, powerful and more affordable GPS tracking. The NSpire platform guarantees high data speeds, always-on service availability, flexible coding for scalability, and security of critical data used in the business.
"Telematics technologies are becoming more sophisticated benefiting the entire automotive industry from OEMs and Tier 1s to businesses that manage remote vehicle assets and consumers," said Oren Betzaleli, EVP, products, strategy and marketing at Red Bend. "Partnering with Spireon, a leader in fleet and asset management and automotive telematics solutions, allows Red Bend the continued opportunity to show the cost-savings and revenue-generating business benefits of OTA software management."
For more information, please visit: www.redbend.com
About Red Bend Software Red Bend® Software, the leader in Mobile Software Management (MSM) with more than 2 billion Red Bend-Enabled™ devices, makes mobile devices and services continuously better in a rapidly changing world. Red Bend is the only company that provides standards-based products and solutions for software management, device management and mobile virtualization that work on any mobile phone and connected device uniformly, efficiently and securely over the air. Red Bend enables its customers to stay competitive in a fast-moving market by helping them deliver high-value services on an increasing number of connected devices with growing software complexity. More than 80 leading device manufacturers, mobile operators, semiconductor vendors and automotive companies worldwide trust Red Bend with their most important assets — the mobile and connected devices their consumers depend on.
ironSource, the world's leading digital delivery platform, today announced the launch of installCore Fusion, allowing publishers to deliver their own downloads with their own installer, while using installCore's superior ad server to monetize each installation. The installCore ad server combines super-targeting and partnerships with high-quality software vendors to ensure that any participating publisher can connect their users with the right products, at the right time.
"The ultimate goal of advertising on any platform should be presenting the user with something relevant and interesting at a time where they are most likely to engage," said Sagi Bakshi GM of installCore. "The strength of our model at installCore is such that we are starting to see a growth in awareness of the value of the install process as a time and space to interact effectively with users, and we're excited to be offering that to even more publishers with Fusion."
ironSource connects developers with users across every platform and device, handling the distribution, delivery and monetization of web, desktop and mobile applications. Along with its industry-leading installer, installCore offers a highly-targeted ad server that ensures the most relevant offers are presented to users at the most opportune times. The ad server uses superior ad matching technology and unique algorithms to break down user traffic by previous downloads, geographic location, and even time of day, in order to increase the chances of a successful commercial conversion during the install process and drive up pay-per-install rates and revenue for publishers.
"At ironSource, we've always been able to combine the best interests of the user and the developer to create a win-win situation for both," said Tomer Bar Zeev, CEO and Co-Founder of ironSource. "With installCore Fusion, publishers can leverage the power of association, only presenting relevant and worthwhile products that strengthen their relationship with their users and help them generate revenue at the same time."
installCore Fusion not only offers publishers effective monetization opportunities, but also provides highly-sophisticated analytics and BI tools to help clients optimize their PPI campaigns. Participating publishers can access in-depth data reports with a full breakdown of relevant download statistics presented in a clear and intuitive format, to help reveal key insights and illuminate trends that can improve publisher's bottom lines.
About installCore
A world-leading installation platform with over 2.5 billion successful desktop application installs to date, installCore specializes in optimized software distribution via customized installers, in-depth installation analytics and traffic monetization. Learn more about installCore at http://www.installcore.com.
About ironSource
World leading digital distribution company ironSource offers a comprehensive platform to help developers improve digital discovery, delivery, distribution and monetization. The solution consists of four cores – installCore, mobileCore, displayCore and mediaCore – that connect software developers and users across devices. Founded in 2009 with headquarters in Tel Aviv, ironSource has offices in San Francisco, New York and Beijing. Please visit us at http://www.ironsrc.com.
Payoneer Inc., a leading online payments company transforming the way businesses send and receive cross-border payments, is now facilitating payouts for merchant suppliers on Wish, a top mobile social e-commerce application that offers consumers a highly personalized shopping experience.
Payoneer facilitates payouts to Wish's merchant suppliers globally through its cross-border payments platform. Through Payoneer's API, Wish fully integrates payouts with its current business flow, enabling Wish merchant suppliers to instantly receive their payments directly to their Payoneer accounts and have multiple ways to receive their funds in their local currency.
Over the past three years, Wish has quickly grown to host more than tens of millions of users worldwide. It is consistently ranked one of the top mobile applications in both the Android Shopping and iPhone Lifestyle categories, with the majority of orders originating from the Wish mobile application. Wish, with its unique global supply chain networks in countries around the world, needed to provide its merchant suppliers with a compliant way to easily receive payments for their sales. To that end, Payoneer now enables merchant suppliers on Wish to receive their payments through Payoneer's various payment solutions.
"At Wish, we aim to make the selling process as easy as possible for our merchant suppliers," said Danny Zhang, co-founder of Wish. "Merchant suppliers simply upload their products, abide by the trading rules and guarantee good quality and on-time delivery. Partnering with Payoneer makes the payout process simple by ensuring merchant suppliers receive their funds quickly and seamlessly. This partnership will help us attract more merchant suppliers around the world and increase overall revenue."
Payoneer has already built strong momentum in the Asia Pacific region. The company recently announced a strategic investment from Ping An Group, a leading integrated Chinese financial services provider and the largest non-state-owned enterprise in China. In addition, Payoneer recently appointed former SWIFT executive Patrick de Courcy to lead its Asia Pacific business activities.
"Payoneer and Wish have a shared vision for how merchant suppliers from all over the world can rapidly grow their businesses in the modern digital economy," said Scott Galit, CEO of Payoneer. "Both companies have made significant investments to help merchants around the world sell globally. We are excited to play a role in facilitating growth for such a unique mobile commerce platform by making payouts to Wish's international sellers easier and more efficient. There is so much opportunity in the Asia Pacific region, and Payoneer is continuing to extend its position there as a leading global payments provider."
About Payoneer Payoneer empowers global commerce by connecting businesses, professionals, countries and currencies with its innovative cross-border payments platform. In today's borderless digital world, Payoneer enables millions of businesses and professionals from more than 200 countries to reach new audiences by facilitating seamless, cross-border payments. Additionally, thousands of leading corporations including Google, Airbnb, Elance-oDesk and iStock Photo (by Getty Images) rely on Payoneer's mass payout services.
LiveU, the pioneer in IP-based portable live video acquisition, contribution and management solutions, today announced that Irish national broadcaster RTE has chosen cellular uplinking technology from LiveU to play a central newsgathering role. The project has been managed and supported by LiveU's Ireland partner, Tyrell.
RTE News has already deployed LiveU's LU500 portable uplink solution and has ordered a LU200 for use with its Ka-band flyaway kit. In addition it's using LU-Smart smartphone app licenses. Piotr Kaszynski, Technology Manager with RTE, said, "We began testing systems with the arrival of 4G, which in turn has improved 3G availability. That led us to choose LiveU for several reasons, specifically for its superior performance and the range of products. We wanted a small, very portable solution that could fit on the back of a camera. The LU500 does exactly this and overcomes the issue of cameramen having to carry a heavy backpack. The LU-Smart app also attracted us. We can see varied applications for this and we are training all our journalists to be flexible in what they use and how they can take advantage of LiveU technology. The support offered by Tyrell and LiveU was also crucial."
The broadcaster is training staff beyond traditional reporters to use LU-Smart technology. Kaszynski said, "We are training staff so that when there is a breaking story we have the flexibility to cover it from as many angles as possible. The rise of news on the internet and its immediacy has changed the way that we have to work. It is not always possible to use Satellite trucks in some locations and they take more time and money to deploy – though of course they have their place - compared to this technology."
RTE has covered a wide range of stories using LiveU's technology, the vast majority live, including: a two-hour Morning Ireland outside broadcast for RTE News Now from the 10th Anniversary of the Workplace Smoking Ban in Ireland; St. Patrick's Parade Dublin city centre and Dublin Castle; President Michael D. Higgins' State Visit to the United Kingdom; and the Electric Picnic Music Festival.
According to Kaszynski, the biggest success was the coverage of the Labour Party Leader's resignation. Notification about the press conference came to RTE half-an-hour before the event started and in this short time an LU500 bonded unit was deployed and setup for live coverage. RTE provided the only live video coverage from the Labour Party press conference and the live feed was picked up by BBC and Sky News. Currently LU500 is on the road every day providing inserts to all main news bulletins and the Morning Edition programme.
Zion Eilam, LiveU's Head of Business Operations Europe, said, "We're very excited to be working in a new territory and special thanks must go to our partner Tyrell. Newsgathering is changing and we are at the vanguard of that change, providing broadcasters with the speed of deployment and mobility that they need to lead the newsgathering market. We're glad that RTE has chosen LiveU for its next newsgathering expansion."
LiveU owns the patent for cellular bonding for remote news gathering in the US and other countries. All LiveU products are based on this fourth-generation patented technology.
About LiveU
LiveU (www.liveu.tv) is the leader in portable live video acquisition, contribution and management solutions. LiveU's award-winning technology enables live video transmission (HD and SD) from any location around the world. With top-tier customers in 60+ countries, LiveU's solutions are being used for breaking news and high-profile events, such as the FIFA World Cup™, Winter and Summer Olympic Games, US Presidential Campaign, Royal Baby, Hurricane Sandy, Super Bowls and US Collegiate Championships. From backpacks to smartphones, and satellite/cellular hybrid to external antenna solutions, LiveU offers a complete range of devices for live video coverage. LiveU's solutions include multiple 4G LTE/3G, HSPA+, WiMAX and Wi-Fi cellular links, which are optimized for maximum video quality based on the available network conditions.
eXelate, the leading independent data platform, today announced that it has hired Julie Ginches as its chief marketing officer. Drawing from more than 20 years of experience launching and positioning high growth companies, Ginches is now responsible for leading all of eXelate's global marketing functions. She will report to CEO Mark Zagorski.
Ginches has a well-known and admirable track record, most recently serving as CMO of advertising automation company, Rubicon Project, where she helped lead a successful Initial Public Offering (IPO) in April 2014. Prior to Rubicon Project, Ginches was an early executive team leader at DataXu, where she built the company's global brand and marketing machine, which helped the company land at No. 5 on the 2013 Inc. 500|5000, an exclusive ranking of the nation's fastest-growing private companies. Ginches has held marketing leadership roles at many other notable companies, including Jumptap, which was acquired by Millennial Media, FAST, which was acquired by Microsoft, and epIcon, which was acquired by Nortel.
Ginches, a pioneer and innovator in customer engagement, is known for positioning and repositioning companies at critical inflection points and for enabling them to enter high-velocity, complex markets. She is also known for her work in helping to define the new digital agenda for today's CMO, a key customer for eXelate moving forward.
"Engaging Julie couldn't have come at a better time," said Zagorski. "The customer journey has changed, and CMOs now need new skills and tools to use data and science to better understand, engage and measure their marketing programs across all on and offline channels. eXelate has a powerful story to tell, and Julie is the right person to help educate the world's leading brand marketers on how data solutions can help them increase their success and ROI."
"eXelate has built a great reputation from the legacy data eXchange business," said Ginches. "As a CMO with deep enterprise marketing technology experience, I am thrilled to be able to help other marketers discover our newer software and data services that provide centralized data management, better consumer insights and more accurate targeting and measurement solutions."
In her CMO role, Ginches will lead a team of industry-leading experts in communications, social technology, ecosystem marketing, community development, and customer education and empowerment.
ironSource, the world's leading digital delivery platform, today announced that their industry leading installation platform – installCore – now supports the Mac operating system, providing a comprehensive offering to developers. installCore is one of the first major download platforms to tailor existing services for Mac, allowing developers to tap into a full, cross-platform solution optimized for all leading operating systems. Uniquely, the system was developed internally, allowing for a truly seamless integration with other ironSource offerings.
"Today's software developers and vendors need to be able to leverage every platform to distribute their applications to the right users," said Sagi Bakshi, GM of installCore. "installCore was designed to ensure that developers can have their applications successfully installed by as many target users as possible, and now they are better equipped to do so.
" ironSource connects developers with target users across every platform and device, handling the distribution, delivery and monetization of web, desktop and mobile applications so that developers can focus on developing. The company currently enables over 5 million installs per day, and is set to take an even greater market share with this latest development.
As one of ironSource's four central cores, installCore assures a superlative install success rate, an attractive and customizable UX that appeals to end users. After four years of success with the Windows Installer, the Mac Installer was developed in just half a year, with the ironSource team leveraging their experience and resources in Windows to bring the same technical expertise and cutting-edge technology to Mac.
installCore clients track performance and gain valuable insight with real-time highly-sophisticated installation analytics and BI tools, incorporating performance data from both their Mac OS, and Windows OS traffic in a single dashboard.
Leading publishers such as SourceForge have started using the new installCore installer for Mac OS and are enjoying relatively high take rates.
"User experience is important to us, and we can trust installCore to provide our users with a smooth and successful installation experience – whether they use a PC or a Mac," said Gaurav Kuchhal, Managing Director of SourceForge.
Outbrain Amplify API opens the world's largest discovery platform to increase marketer effectiveness through innovation, and programmatic buying.
Outbrain, the world's largest content discovery platform, today announced the launch of its Amplify API, which enables marketers to programmatically manage and measure their content campaigns on the Outbrain platform. The Amplify API will empower marketers to seamlessly integrate their content and campaigns directly into Outbrain's network of leading media properties, reaching a worldwide audience of more than 561 million.
The Outbrain Amplify API will provide developers of all sizes open access to its platform, enabling marketers to scale the reach of their content through programmatic access to the most premium publishers in the world. This technology adds an automation layer to the creation, management and reporting of content campaigns; it also integrates the buying and measurement of Outbrain campaigns to the dashboards of leading media and technology companies who have joined Outbrain's global partner ecosystem.
Joint customers of Outbrain and its partners, such as Contently, now have a single solution for managing content creation and distribution. The companies view this as a clear differentiator and a milestone.
"This is a major signal of a maturing industry for leading technology and media companies to work together and drive innovation for their customers. We share Outbrain's vision to ensure that brands large and small benefit from more robust and complete content marketing solutions," said Joe Coleman, CEO of Contently. "When Outbrain opens the world's largest content marketplace for others to build upon, you're going to see efficiency and innovation take off, by everyone from global leaders to shrewd independent tacticians."
Through Outbrain's new Amplify API solution, programmatic buying becomes a reality for content marketing for the first time since it gained prominence as an effective way to connect with and grow engaged audiences. By establishing an open, developer-friendly platform, Outbrain will allow technology and media partners to build proprietary solutions for the placement of their content, manage bids in real time, and simultaneously track data from multiple media partners or clients. Outbrain campaigns will be purchased and measured from the dashboards of major buyers and agencies in the same way that many do for display, search and social media.
"When it comes to content marketing, creating and distributing content with efficiency has become a primary challenge. Customization, while crucial, is inherently inefficient," commented Shafqat Islam, CEO of Newscred. "Now that programmatic has entered the content marketer's world, I believe that it will drive adoption by a new wave of digital marketers who are primed to take advantage of it."
"The content marketing industry is continually expanding and fragmenting, which makes it difficult for marketers to find comprehensive solutions," added Gilad deVries, SVP Product & Strategy at Outbrain. "We listened to our audience and opened up our platform to address this. Our new proprietary technology will not only make marketers more effective and therefore successful, but will also help to drive the continued and explosive growth seen in our industry."
In July, Outbrain launched a strategic partnership with Newscred, ushering in a new way for marketers to reach relevant audiences authentically, simply and at scale. Outbrain continues to make considerable technological and commercial advancements enabling marketers to move one step closer to a turnkey approach to content marketing.
The Outbrain Amplify API complements the company's API offerings for publishers. To learn more about the Amplify API or apply to be a partner in the program, visit http://developer.outbrain.com/amplify or contact email@example.com .
About Outbrain:
Outbrain (http://www.outbrain.com/) is the world's largest content discovery platform, bringing personalised, relevant online, mobile and video content to audiences while helping publishers understand their audiences through data. Outbrain serves over 190 billion personalized content recommendations every month and reaches over 561 million unique visitors from across the globe.
Outbrain's expansion to some of the web's largest global properties is a reflection of its rapid growth and its successful innovations in supporting a new era of digital publishing. Top-tier premium publications that currently leverage the Outbrain platform include: CNN, ESPN, Le Monde, Fox News, The Guardian, Slate, The Telegraph, New York Post, Times of India and Sky News.
Founded in 2006, the company is headquartered in New York with a presence in a growing number of locations globally, including the U.S., U.K., Israel, Singapore, Japan and Australia.
LiveU, the leader in portable live video acquisition, contribution and management solutions, has partnered with the NFL's New York Jets to provide the team's live video technology solution. LiveU's LU500 video transmission backpack allows the NY Jets digital media team to transmit live video from any location directly to the team's website (www.newyorkjets.com), mobile app and post-production facility. Currently, with the use of LiveU's technology, fans can tune in for live coverage of the team's pre and postgame shows, as well as selected press conferences and special team events throughout the week.
Weighing only 2.2Lbs (1kg), LiveU's LU500 live video backpack offers up to 13 network links, including eight internal cellular modems and proprietary antenna technology for high-quality video transmission from anywhere; without requiring satellite trucks, running cables, or any line-of-sight restrictions.
The NY Jets digital media team began utilizing the LU500 in the 2014 preseason to support the team's training camp programming. After the successful debut of the first unit, the team quickly decided it needed a second LU500 field unit in order to capture all the unique live footage fans crave. Throughout the 2014 season, the NY Jets are able to stream live video from any spot, both at home and on the road, including from the side-line, locker room, stadium tunnels, team hotels and buses, practice facilities, and much more. The LU500 can be fully controlled and managed via LiveU Central, a cloud-based management system for a one-stop destination to control, monitor, and manage all LiveU units, servers, and apps.
"LiveU technology is a game-changer when it comes to fans and content consumption," said Seth Rabinowitz, Jets SVP of Marketing and Fan Engagement, "With LiveU, we are able to provide our fans with considerably more real-time content so they can hear directly from the team in a timely, unfiltered way".
"We are very happy to see the Jets leveraging our technology", said Ken Zamkow, VP Marketing - Americas, LiveU, "With extensive presence in both professional and college sports, LiveU is the gold standard for live video transmission. Whether for game-related content, faster posting of video clips, or even full varsity games, the technology has become an inseparable part of sports production".
NEW YORK & LONDON – November 18, 2014 — Time Inc., one of the world's leading media companies and Outbrain Inc., the world's largest content discovery platform, announced today the details of an exclusive multi-year agreement that will see Time Inc. enhance its digital strategy by deploying the full suite of Outbrain's solutions for seamlessly surfacing content that is relevant to audiences across its global portfolio. The partnership is expected to generate more than $100 million for Time Inc. over the course of the agreement.
This partnership highlights the inherent value and reach of Time Inc.'s ultra-premium network for marketers. With leading content brands such as People, Time, Sports Illustrated, InStyle and Real Simple, Time Inc. delivers valued content within brand-safe environments to a highly engaged and desirable audience. Time Inc. has experienced significant digital growth over the past year and currently boasts more than six billion page views per quarter and 131 million unique users per month, globally. The company has increased its video streams more than 200 percent year over year.
Following seven years of innovation on behalf of its partners, Outbrain has broadened its technology into a multifaceted platform to drive a new era of digital publishing. This full stack software solution empowers an entire media organization to more effectively manage its brands' online content and programming experience. Outbrain will provide Time Inc. with tools that marry editorial decision-making with predictive analytics and algorithmically-generated content recommendations. Time Inc. will also leverage Outbrain's premium publisher network to drive incremental engaged audiences to its digital properties.
Time Inc. Chairman and CEO, Joe Ripp said: "Our success has always been based on unique relationships with audiences. This provides marketers with an ideal environment to deliver their messaging. Today, we are connecting with consumers across every conceivable platform, serving them content that is relevant and engaging. Outbrain's focus on audience experience and surfacing optimized content recommendations was a key to launching this partnership. It maximizes the monetization of our audience to other content publishers. And, it provides key insights and analytics about our core digital users."
Yaron Galai, Co-Founder and CEO of Outbrain said: "We are delighted to announce our agreement with Time Inc. and believe that smart and innovative companies like it are the lifeblood of the new look digital media industry. Outbrain began as a straightforward recommendation product, but we have innovated, adapted and evolved into a platform that serves multiple publisher constituencies—the business, editorial and product teams—affording our partners the flexibility to embrace digital opportunities and continue to deliver what audiences crave."
Outbrain continues to build on its strong growth trajectory and incredible momentum and now has offices in more than 11 global territories and partners with publishers and marketers in over 55 countries, including the U.S., UK, France, Japan, India and Brazil. Worldwide, it now serves over 190 billion recommendations per month to consumers in over 150 countries—with more than 561 million unique users in September 2014 according to comScore.
NEW YORK, Nov. 17, 2014 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- RealMatch, the leader in performance-based recruitment advertising, is pleased to announce that Jonathan Bulkeley has been appointed as CEO. Mr. Bulkeley, a 25 year internet industry veteran, brings a wealth of experience in management, investing, and corporate governance to RealMatch at a time when the company is experiencing rapid growth and disrupting the $19 billion online recruitment industry.
"I am honored to have been asked to take this role, and look forward to building on the strengths, momentum, and rapid growth that the company has already established," said Jonathan Bulkeley. "RealMatch is well positioned to dominate the lucrative online recruitment market with its innovative technology, and I am excited to work with founder, Gal Almog, the Board and the RealMatch team as the company executes on its expansion strategy.
" Mr. Bulkeley has deep operational expertise building and capitalizing digital businesses. During his long career, he has overseen $1.5B+ in digital revenue growth in a variety of capacities. Prior to joining RealMatch, Mr. Bulkeley was the founder and CIO of Blue Square Capital Management, a hedge fund focusing on small and micro cap global digital media companies. Prior to Blue Square, Mr. Bulkeley held executive leadership roles including CEO of Scanbuy, Inc. a global leader in visual navigation for the wireless industry, CEO of BarnesandNoble.com where he led the company to the 2nd largest Internet IPO at the time, Managing Director of AOL's UK JV with Bertelsmann, and other senior roles at America Online, Inc. In addition, Mr. Bulkeley sits on numerous boards in the high-tech, information, and financial services industries.
Gal Almog, the company's founder who has served as CEO since 2007, will become RealMatch's President and relocate to Israel to oversee the company's R &D center and lead product development. Mr. Almog will also focus on strategy and vision in support of the company's expansion and to maintain its leadership in recruitment technology innovation.
"We are excited to be joined by Jonathan Bulkeley who brings deep experience in digital publishing and online advertising. Jonathan's successful track record in leading companies through hyper growth is what RealMatch needs now as it strives to become a global leader in the recruitment advertising industry," said Mr. Almog.
RealMatch was built on the idea of revolutionizing the online recruitment advertising industry by matching today's talent pool with all job opportunities in the most efficient and effective manner. RealMatch's strategy is based on partnerships with digital publishers, to better monetize their communities with recruitment advertising. Unlike traditional job board technology, RealMatch solutions are built to perform. With targeted distribution across the largest talent marketplace in North America and industry leading job matching technology – online publishers return high performing job ads with better quality candidates, on their sites and under their brand. To learn more visit www.realmatch.com. - See more at: http://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2014/11/17/683883/10108614/en/RealMatch-Names-Jonathan-Bulkeley-as-CEO.html#sthash.SoiN1v9v.dpuf
TradAir, the leading provider of front office visualization and optimization solutions, announces the release of the new TradAir Dynamic HTML5 front end and patented TradAir TouchPad offerings, providing customers with extensive personalization options not previously available in this market.
TradAir has been at the forefront of HTML5 development, and now extends these capabilities to clients, allowing them to directly personalize the interface. The new release also allows for the incorporation of proprietary and third party applications and algorithms, while leveraging TradAir's highly sophisticated visualization and 3D analytics. Using TradAir web style sheet templates, clients can deliver their applications, data and their brand to their customers via state of the art technology. This enables them to easily personalize the product far beyond logo and coloring to promote their unique style and character. The personalization benefits can be extended to other products and services and other asset classes. By using the Dynamic HTML front end, clients can also capture and analyze their trading data.
"TradAir's solution represents the next generation of white labelling. Our solution provides the cost, technical and time-to-market benefits of an outsourced model, while incorporating specific internal personalization benefits, so that our clients can deliver truly unique and technologically advanced solutions to their own clients," says Illit Geller, TradAir's CEO.
Using HTML 5 reduces the operational investment and headache required to maintain and support complex trading technology, and delivers substantial savings in terms of investment and support. The ease of installation and upgrade coupled with access across device and screen size significantly improves the overall client experience.
TradAir has combined these visualization tools with TradAir TouchPad , TradAir's patented "touch and trade" technology, replacing and enhancing the traditional trading keypad. TradAir TouchPad works on its own or in conjunction with a full monitor, streamlining workflow and order entry.
Ayal Jedeikin, TradAir's COO and Head of Product adds: "Our integrated TouchPad improves upon keypad, keyboard and mouse based trading, allowing our clients to not only take advantage of great visualization but advancements in hardware. Our patented implementation and design, ensure this is done securely and efficiently. "
The TradAir solution is modular, and seamlessly integrates with existing components, providing the highest level of customization, flexibility and time to market.
NEW YORK, Nov. 13, 2014 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- RealMatch, the leader in performance-based recruitment advertising, announced today it has been named to the Deloitte Technology Fast 500™, a ranking of the 500 fastest growing technology, media, telecommunications, life sciences and clean technology companies in North America.
RealMatch grew 701% percent during 2009 to 2013 and ranks 11th within the Tri-State area, 79th in the Software Category and in the top 30% overall at 153 of the Deloitte Fast 500™. "RealMatch's place in the Deloitte's Fast 500 is a testament to our innovative and disruptive business model. We are rapidly changing the landscape of the $19 billion online recruitment advertising industry and setting the new standards in online recruitment with our innovative technology," said Gal Almog, RealMatch founder and CEO. "As we continue our accelerated growth trajectory, we remain focused on building the largest and most efficient talent marketplace in conjunction with our online publisher partners and the communities they serve." "The companies ranked on the 2014 Deloitte Technology Fast 500 continue to set the bar for their industry higher each year," said Eric Openshaw, vice chairman, Deloitte LLP and U.S. technology, media and telecommunications leader. "There are so many exciting products and smart thought leaders driving this list. We congratulate the Fast 500 companies and look forward to seeing them continue their momentum into 2015." Overall, 2014 Technology Fast 500™ companies achieved revenue growth ranging from 135 percent to 123,678 percent from 2009 to 2013, with an average growth of 1,640 percent. "For 20 years, the Deloitte Fast 500 rankings have honored the innovation that is part of these companies' DNA," added Jim Atwell, national managing partner of the emerging growth company practice, Deloitte & Touche LLP. "We're glad to be serving these high-growth companies, and helping the technology sector recognize the great strides and transformation these companies are making in their respective areas."
About RealMatch RealMatch was built on the idea of revolutionizing the online recruitment advertising industry by matching today's talent pool with all job opportunities in the most efficient and effective manner. RealMatch's strategy is based on partnerships with digital publishers, to better monetize their communities with recruitment advertising. Unlike traditional job board technology, RealMatch solutions are built to perform. With targeted distribution across the largest talent marketplace in North America and industry leading job matching technology – online publishers return high performing job ads with better quality candidates, on their sites and under their brand. To learn more visit www.realmatch.com.
About Deloitte's 2014 Technology Fast 500™ Technology Fast 500, conducted by Deloitte LLP, provides a ranking of the fastest growing technology, media, telecommunications, life sciences and clean technology companies – both public and private – in North America. Technology Fast 500 award winners are selected based on percentage fiscal year revenue growth from 2009 to 2013. In order to be eligible for Technology Fast 500 recognition, companies must own proprietary intellectual property or technology that is sold to customers in products that contribute to a majority of the company's operating revenues. Companies must have base-year operating revenues of at least $50,000 USD or CD, and current-year operating revenues of at least $5 million USD or CD. Additionally, companies must be in business for a minimum of five years and be headquartered within North America.
LiveU Community is a reflection of LiveU's strategy to offer value-added services to its customers, enabled by its cloud-based central management platform, LiveU Central. Once the connection is made between the broadcaster and the service provider, the content can be transmitted and managed centrally.
With the LiveU Community, LiveU uplink devices can transmit to any LiveU server, essentially allowing the broadcaster to use any service provider's unit as one of their own. Leveraging the massive deployment of LiveU units and servers around the world, LiveU Community enables LiveU broadcasters to find LiveU-equipped professionals in any geographic location and create unique content at a significantly reduced cost, and much faster, than sending their own news crew or using satellite or microwave equipment.
Samuel Wasserman, LiveU's CEO, said, "Using our technology, we're proud to have created an effective platform with hundreds of customers that serves as a bridge between broadcasters and the freelance video community. The LiveU Community platform is a real innovation in its field, opening a whole range of options for our customers to connect to one another and acquire valuable content when they need it. We've had great feedback so far with new members signing up every day."
"The LiveU Community opens a whole new door for potential clients. Providing live content as a freelancer is so much easier and affordable with LiveU technology and the Community gives us the platform to access the largest broadcasters," said Terje Ness, Press Photographer, Ness Multimedia AS.
Wasserman continued, "It's a win-win solution for the industry. Broadcasters can obtain content that financially or logistically would have been prohibitive, and freelancers and service providers have greater access to the world's media. LiveU Community reflects our long-term strategy to enhance our offering with new value-added services."
London, UK , November 06, 2014
cVidya, a leading provider of Revenue Analytics solutions for digital and communications service providers (CSPs), today released a major new version of its market-leading Fraud Management solution. Equipped with advanced detection tools, the latest version of FraudView will significantly reduce the time it takes for service providers to investigate fraud and limit their financial exposure, improving efficiency and enhancing business performance.
Encapsulating cVidya's extensive Fraud Management experience and expertise, FraudView now proactively retrieves and presents analysts with relevant information and meaningful insights, enabling service providers to detect and prevent fraud quickly and accurately. Fully compatible with the Hadoop big data framework, the new version of FraudView also proactively highlights suspicious patterns in historic data related to the investigated entity. Furthermore, an intuitive new user interface streamlines the investigative process by enabling analysts to collect pieces of evidence in an e-commerce-style shopping cart.
To help business leaders gauge the impact of criminal activities, this new version of FraudView also introduces tools and dashboards that provide key business insights, such as the service provider's financial exposure and the monetary implications of specific attacks and counter measures. The solution can be accessed from any device with a web browser, enabling a CFO, for example, to check specific dashboards on a tablet at an airport.
"Our smart new version of FraudView puts cVidya's in-depth Fraud Management experience and know-how – acquired serving more than 80 operators worldwide - at the full disposal of our customers, " said Alon Aginsky, President and CEO of cVidya. "Our advanced algorithms ensure that business leaders and fraud analysts have the information they need at their fingertips, enabling them to move swiftly and decisively to safeguard their business."
SAN MATEO, CA -- (Marketwired) -- 10/30/14 -- Clarizen, the leader in enterprise work collaboration software, announced significant growth across all geographies in the third quarter -- including customer wins with True Value, Sodexo and one of the top three discount retailers in the US. Other Q3 highlights include being named in JMP Securities' Hot 100 Software Companies list and the introduction of Clarizen's 2014 Summer Release, which contained new visualization, communication and usability enhancements.
Several large deployments of social licenses in Q3 demonstrated customer adoption of Clarizen's vision of the Work Graph, enabling companies to go from ideation to execution in a single tool. Average deal value per customer more than doubled, demonstrating larger deployments and adoption of Clarizen as the preferred work collaboration platform for the enterprise. In fact, the enterprise segment is the fastest growing customer segment for the company.
"I am delighted to report that we blew away our Q3 number and nearly doubled revenues in the Americas," said Avinoam Nowogrodski, CEO of Clarizen. "This is a testament to customers' enthusiasm for our enterprise work collaboration solutions, especially given that Q3 is typically slow for most enterprise software companies. None of this would have happened without our customers' belief in the power of enterprise work collaboration and the dramatic impact it can have on their operations."
Other Q3 highlights:
The Work GraphThe way most companies work is broken. First we build work groups, and then we engage in conversations, which may become actions and, ideally, these actions become deliverables. Each of these typically live in disconnected "islands" of activity, managed by different systems. Clarizen is different in that it connects these islands into a "work graph" that is organically created through the act of getting work done. The work graph enables collaboration that drives results, turning every organization into a high-performance, real-time operation.
About Clarizen Clarizen is the leader in enterprise-class work collaboration and project management solutions that harness the power of the cloud to get work done efficiently, effectively and with better results. Fast to deploy and easy to use, Clarizen is redefining enterprise collaboration by connecting social context with tasks and projects to drive increased productivity and profitability. Clarizen fuels the high-performance teams of more than 2,300 organizations across 76 countries, including dozens of the Fortune 500. Most recently, Gigaom Research rated Clarizen at the top in its Sector RoadMap: process based collaboration in 2014 report. Founded in 2006, Clarizen is privately held with offices in San Mateo, California and Hod Hasharon, Israel. For more information, visit www.clarizen.com.
Clarizen is a registered trademark and the Clarizen logo is a trademark of Clarizen Ltd. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
New Fund to Continue Carmel Strategy of Backing Visionary Israeli Entrepreneurs Focused on Building Leading Global Technology Companies
Tel Aviv, October 22, 2014. Carmel Ventures, a leading Israeli venture capital firm and a member of the Viola Group, today announced the final closing of its latest investment fund, Carmel Ventures IV ("Fund IV"), with total commitments of $194 million. Fund IV, like its predecessor funds, will be invested in early-stage transformative technology companies in high growth sectors that include enterprise software, data center infrastructure, big data, cyber security, FinTech, digital media and consumer applications.
Carmel began investing out of the new fund in January 2014 and has made investments in PlayBuzz, LuckyFish and three other promising early stage technology companies.
Fund IV was raised with equity commitments from global institutional investors that include a significant number of return investors as well as selected new investors. In addition, several leading Asian strategic investors have joined the new fund including Baidu, Ping-An, and Qihoo360 amongst others. Fund IV is led by six partners; Shlomo Dovrat, Avi Zeevi, Ori Bendori, Ronen Nir, Daniel Cohen and Itzik Avidor. As in previous funds, Fund IV includes a significant equity investment by Carmel's General Partners and affiliates.
"Technology entrepreneurs and the venture industry in Israel have become more focused on building significant companies. Carmel has been at the forefront of these developments and is involved with several world class companies coming out of Israel," said Kathryn Mayne, Managing Director of Horsley Bridge Partners. "We value our strong relationship with Carmel Ventures and are pleased to continue our successful partnership with them in Fund IV."
"We are delighted to be making our first investment in an Israeli Venture fund with Carmel Ventures," said Daniel Tu, Group Chief Innovation Officer at Ping An Group of China. "Carmel offers us reliable access to Israeli innovation and we look forward to partnering with them."
"Building global, significant Israeli technology companies is what we're passionate about at Carmel," said Shlomo Dovrat, Co-Founder and General Partner at Carmel Ventures. "We are committed to backing visionary Israeli entrepreneurs who aspire to transform industries and markets on a global scale, and build world class companies. We hope to back those teams early on and be helpful to them as they scale up. We are fortunate to work with many exceptional entrepreneurial teams; companies such as ironSource, Outbrain and Payoneer are transforming entire industries, generating significant revenues and have become global leaders."
Today, Carmel Ventures manages over $800 million of investor capital and is invested in 35 active companies.
With over $800 million currently under management, several successful exits, and a growing portfolio of promising companies, Carmel is among Israel's top-tier venture capital funds. Founded in 2000 by pioneers and leaders of the Israeli high tech industry, Carmel provides significant capital and active support through the growth cycle of its portfolio companies and is recognized as a true company building fund in Israel.
Carmel is a member of the Viola Group, Israel's premier technology-focused PE group with over $2B under management. For more information, visit www.carmelventures.com.
Perfecto Mobile, the leader in mobile app quality, today announced the best quarter in the company's eight-year history – with the acquisition of over 110 new customers, unprecedented sales volume and dramatic increases to its job rolls.
"Perfecto Mobile continues to lead the way in the multibillion dollar mobile app quality market. The company provides a highly scalable, proven solution to customers trying to adapt to the constantly changing mobile market," said Liron Gitig, FTV Capital partner. "The continued strong company growth and blue chip customer acquisition reinforces our decision to invest in Perfecto Mobile."
Perfecto Mobile signed over 110 new customers within the past three months, and currently hosts a customer base that includes 1,500 organizations across the banking, insurance, retail, telecommunications and media industries, including the top names in Fortune 100/500.
In the past year alone, the company doubled its workforce and opened a sixth business office in Germany. The company is looking to continue its growth next quarter by adding more than 20 positions across the organization before the end of the year.
Perfecto Mobile also generated significant momentum in its partner channel. It now has 75 partners including technology leaders, prominent Global System Integrators, and emerging growth partners. New partners recently added include CloudBees, Neotys, Automation Consultants and FDS Networks.
Perfecto Mobile executives attributed the company's continued growth to the increased importance of integrating testing earlier in today's enterprise environments. Perfecto Mobile ensures the quality of applications and improves the time to market for enterprise customers.
"Enterprises need to accelerate their development lifecycles without compromising on the quality of their applications," said Eran Yaniv, CEO of Perfecto Mobile. "Perfecto Mobile is the proven leader for mobile app quality because we enable Dev/Test teams to adopt an agile methodology and meet this shift in the market. Our mission has always been to provide our customers with the best technology to deliver quality apps that exceed end users' expectations. Our continued growth is a reflection of meeting the mission of superior end user engagement and providing a solution that matches the demand in the market."
It has been a banner year for the company already. Perfecto Mobile has received 10 awards in 2014 including the 2014 SD Times 100, Red Herring Top 100 North America, The Mobility Tech Zone Product of the Year, Network Products Guide 2014 Hot Companies, On Demand Top 100 "Ones to Watch" and CTO Yoram Mizrachi was an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of Year award finalist.
Perfecto Mobile is transforming the way enterprise organizations go mobile, enabling them to develop, test, deploy and monitor their mobile applications and services and go-to-market with confidence. Perfecto Mobile's cloud-based MobileCloud™ Platform and end-to-end mobile app quality product suite enables users to remotely access a large selection of real mobile devices connected to local cellular networks around the world and leverage them throughout the mobile application delivery lifecycle – from development, functional and performance testing to monitoring and support. The MobileCloud™ is available either in an enterprise private cloud or a sharable public cloud environment.
More than 1,500 customers, including the top Fortune 100/500 across the banking, insurance, retail, telecommunications and media industries rely on Perfecto Mobile to optimize mobile time-to-market, customer engagement, risk mitigation and costs and continuously serve their mobile users with confidence.
For more information on how Perfecto Mobile can help you confidently test, deploy and monitor your mobile apps, visit www.perfectomobile.com and follow us on Twitter: @PerfectoMobile
TEL AVIV & NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Personetics, a provider of online Personalized Guidance solutions to the global consumer banking industry, announced today that one of its customers, the First International Bank of Israel (FIBI), is the first bank to deploy a holistic, personalized guidance solution covering both Investments and banking relationships.
"By building the most advanced predictive analytics available right into FIBI's digital channels, we're able to help their customers make better financial decisions across their banking and investment portfolios"
"By building the most advanced predictive analytics available right into FIBI's digital channels, we're able to help their customers make better financial decisions across their banking and investment portfolios," said David Sosna, CEO of Personetics. "We're very excited by this deployment, which is the first time we've provided guidance that covers the entire product and service relationship with the customer.
According to Ella Golan, Head of banking division and executive vice president at First International Bank: "Our view of the service is that it's an innovative, new approach that enables us to better guide and help our customers. Personalized guidance isn't another sales tool. Rather, it's a smart personal assistant that learns what the customer needs and adapts accordingly."
FIBI and its subsidiaries are utilizing Personetics' flagship Smart Assistant® solution, which draws from customers' banking transactions, credit card activity, investment portfolios and other data to provide relevant insights across banking and investment accounts. By incorporating Personetics Smart Assistant technology, customers using FIBI's online website will receive prompts that engage them across a broad range of important topics. These might include alerting a customer to recent activity with new merchants, highlighting a portfolio change, or providing useful tips -- such as how to avoid foreign exchange fees when traveling.
How does it work? Each time a FIBI customer logs in, the new service will analyze that customer's activities across all their accounts and holdings, and then present a simple view of the most relevant, useful and timely insights. To achieve this, the technology deploys highly sophisticated predictive analytics and relevancy scoring. The solution performs to up-to-date (real-time) analysis of both banking and portfolio-related activity and uses a proprietary learning and prioritization algorithm to tailor the response to specific customer needs.
About Personetics
Recently named by Gartner as a 2014 "Cool Vendor" and by the American Banker/BTN as a "Top 10 FinTech Company to Watch", Personetics (www.personetics.com) is a leading provider of personalized customer guidance solutions for the financial services industry. Backed by Sequoia Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Carmel Ventures, the company has offices in New York, London and Tel Aviv.
About First International Bank of Israel
FIBI is among Israel's five largest banking groups and a leading player in capital markets activities. With assets of over NIS 100 billion ($30 Billion) FIBI serves both market professionals and private customers via a branch network of over 180 branches, dealing rooms, specialized investment advice centers and digital channels.
J. Roderick, Inc.John Roderick, email@example.com
The 30 companies on the list, which range in size from two dozen employees to more than 3,500, were selected based on a range of criteria including hiring practices, benefits packages, salaries, office perks, workplace environment and design, and diversity policies, as well as surveys completed by more than 2,000 employees at the 30 companies.
The companies recognized as the 30 Best Places to Work in NYC Tech are:
AdRoll AOL Appboy, Inc. Avanade, Inc Bounce Exchange BuzzFeed CafeMom CPXi DonorsChoose.org Grovo Learning JOOR JW Player LivePerson Marathon Consulting Paperless Post PhotoShelter, Inc. Priceline.com Razorfish Ready Set Rocket Rubicon Project Sailthru Squarespace SumAll SundaySky The Barbarian Group TripleLift Inc Unified Social Voxy Xaxis Yieldbot
Honorees will be celebrated at the Best Places to Work in New York City Tech Luncheon on November 20th in the Great Room at The W Hotel in Union Square. The company receiving the highest overall score will receive a special award and a $2,500 gift certificate from Internet Week partner Design Within Reach. Special awards will also be presented to companies that excelled in areas such as Happiest Employees, Best Perks, Best Work/Life Balance, Best Workplace Culture, Best Small Company and Best Large Company.
The 30 Best Places to Work in New York City Tech is presented in partnership with CBRE Group, Inc., the world's largest commercial real estate services and investment firm, and submissions were evaluated by Internet Week research partner Buck Consultants LLC. To be eligible for the competition, companies must have a minimum of 20 employees working full-time in a New York office.
"New York City has become one of the world's top tech cities, where companies are investing in both smart ideas and great workplaces to draw outstanding talent and foster extraordinary performance," said Allison Arden, Managing Director of Internet Week. "Internet Week's Best Places to Work in NY Tech list recognizes the companies setting the standard for creating cultures that allow successful companies and outstanding talent to thrive in one of the most dynamic and exciting tech communities in the world."
"New York's tech community is a driving force in transforming the look, feel and function of the workplace," said Kyle Schoppmann, Head of Occupier Services for CBRE's Tri-State Region. "CBRE is excited to recognize the industry's leaders, along with Internet Week—and we look forward to collaborating with the tech community as their needs evolve."
Internet Week New York 2015 will take place May 18-24. More than 45,000 people are expected to attend more than 250 panels, exhibits, screenings and parties at the Internet Week New York HQ, the nerve center of the festival at Chelsea's Metropolitan Pavilion, and at venues across the city.
Earlier this year, Internet Week and CBRE partnered to launch "The NYC Edition of Internet Week Tech Digs," an original web series exploring the workplaces of some of the top digital companies driving New York City's tech-based economy.
About Internet Week Internet Week supports New York's vibrant tech-based economy and celebrates the entrepreneurial spirit and global impact of technology on business, entertainment and culture. The festival highlights the innovators building the new economy and creating opportunity, while educating and empowering attendees to succeed. Internet Week New York is every week, and the festival is part of an always-on movement in support of the tech community and the industries so important to global competitiveness.
About CBRE CBRE Group, Inc., a Fortune 500 and S&P 500 company, is the world's largest commercial real estate services and investment firm. The company has approximately 44,000 employees, and serves real estate owners, investors and occupiers through approximately 350 offices worldwide. In New York, CBRE has been the leader in commercial real estate for more than a quarter century, providing a comprehensive delivery platform that has become an industry benchmark. A culture of collaboration empowers our people—and our clients—with the information they need to anticipate market opportunities, gain the competitive edge and implement the best real estate strategies possible. CBRE serves the needs of technology clients in New York through industry-specific market intelligence, insight into tech companies' unique occupancy requirements and strong advisory experience based on years of experience with some of the most outstanding names in tech. http://www.cbre.us
Cary, NC (PRWEB) October 14, 2014
Samanage, provider of the only multi-tenant service desk and asset management cloud solution on the market, announced today that FirstCare Health Plans has selected Samanage's unified platform of IT service desk and asset management solutions.
FirstCare Health Plans, provider of high quality and affordable health care plans throughout West Texas, was using Samanage IT Asset Management for easy insight into all of the systems on their network, when the time came to evaluate alternatives for IT service management (ITSM). "Our contract for our ITSM solution was coming up for renewal and we decided we needed a change based on many factors, but primarily cost," said Brian Moore, Lead, Desktop Support with FirstCare Health Plans.
The key criteria for the new ITSM solution required it follow general ITIL guidelines for incident management, problem management, change management, release management, service catalog and asset management. FirstCare also required quick implementation and a simple user interface so other functional areas could leverage the solution to manage service delivery. And finally, an ITSM solution needed to be offered at a good price point. FirstCare's research for an ITSM solution led them to a Forrester report, "Forrester Market Overview: SaaS IT Service Management Tools, 2013".
In addition to Samanage, FirstCare evaluated SysAid, BMC Remedyforce, and Easy Vista for its ITSM needs. "The Forrester report validated that Samanage was a real contender in the marketplace for an ITSM solution in addition to the asset management we were already using," said Moore. After several demos and test driving the solution, FirstCare chose to expand their use of Samanage into the service desk product.
"We are privileged to have FirstCare Health Plans as part of the growing Samanage customer community," said Doron Gordon, CEO of Samanage. "FirstCare's mission includes providing quality, affordable health plans and to always put the customer first. We share the same philosophy at Samanage as a business that adds value and innovation to our customers through IT service management solutions every day. We look forward to partnering with FirstCare to help them achieve their mission," said Gordon.
Feedback from internal FirstCare IT customers has been positive. "Our customers tell us the Samanage tool is a lot simpler, cleaner and has a more friendly user interface than our previous tool," said Moore. The implementation of Samanage also met FirstCare expectations. "The implementation was as smooth and quick as the system itself is very straightforward and simple," said Moore. "In fact, our challenge was adapting complicated processes to work properly in the new system because it was that simple to use."
Moore also commented on the value of a true-cloud based solution such as Samanage. "More than anything else, the fact that the entire environment is hosted and the provider is responsible for the upkeep is of great value," said Moore. "However at the top of our list when looking at cloud solutions is the ability to ensure our data remains secure according to our strict compliance standards that we must abide by, and we are confident in Samanage."
About Samanage Samanage provides the only true multi-tenant, unified service desk and asset management cloud solution on the market today. Our revolutionary user interface delivers an unmatched user experience and enables code-free customization, allowing customers to fully deploy a robust IT Service Management (ITSM) solution in only 14 days. We are uniquely able to deliver both simplicity and strength to customers in the form of instant value, user-friendly functionality, and feature-rich and "future-proof" capabilities. Our goal is to help customers deliver a superior service experience to their end users, and real value throughout their organization by improving asset control, empowering end users, and maximizing resources. Learn more at: http://www.samanage.com.
Cary, NC (PRWEB) October 09, 2014
Samanage, provider of the only multi-tenant, unified service desk and asset management cloud solution on the market, today announced the company was named a finalist for the fast growth, small company category of the 2014 North Carolina Tech Awards.
Hosted by the North Carolina Technology Association (NCTA), the NC Tech Awards are North Carolina's only statewide technology awards program, recognizing outstanding achievement in technology.
"We are honored to be recognized by NCTA as a finalist for the fast growth, small company award," said Doron Gordon, Samanage CEO. "In fiscal year 2013, Samanage experienced record revenue growth as demand for our easy-to-use SaaS Service Desk and IT Asset Management software tripled over years past. Overall revenues increased 250% from the previous year and we doubled our global customer base."
"Since 1995, the NC Tech Awards (formerly the NCTA 21 Awards) have honored companies for outstanding achievement in the tech sector and use of technology. As a finalist in this year's awards, Samanage has distinguished itself as one of the state's technology leaders," stated Brooks Raiford, NCTA's President and CEO.
A review committee comprised of non-profit, media, education, and technology leaders representing various regions of the state selected this year's finalists. The awards process culminates with the NC Tech Awards Gala on November 6, 2014 at the Raleigh Convention Center.
About NCTA The North Carolina Technology Association (NCTA) is a not-for-profit, membership-driven trade association and the primary voice of the technology industry in North Carolina. NCTA is the intersection of leadership and technology, fueling the growth of North Carolina through Executive Engagement, Public Affairs, and a Knowledge Workforce. For more information, visit our website at http://www.nctechnology.org.
Reduxio is a World Leader in Storage Innovation with Next Generation Hybrid Storage Systems; Funding to Accelerate Market Entry
SAN FRANCISCO, CA, Oct 6, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Reduxio Systems, the next-generation hyper-efficient hybrid storage innovator, announced today that it has closed a $15 million Series B funding, led by Seagate Technology plc (NASDAQ: STX), a world leader in storage solutions, and joined by existing investors Jerusalem Venture Partners (JVP), Carmel Ventures and Intel Capital. This comes just one year after last year's round of $12 million.The funds will accelerate Reduxio's product development and support its go-to-market plan. In conjunction with this investment, Seagate will obtain a seat on the Reduxio Board of Directors.
"We are very excited to close this funding round," said Mark Weiner, Chief Executive Officer, Reduxio Systems. "We are thrilled to have Seagate as an investor. Seagate has the know-how and the passion that has allowed them to continue to be the leader in the storage industry. Seagate's investment validates our innovative architecture and our execution to date, and will help us to bring our products to customers earlier."
"This investment underscores our continued commitment to further strengthen our position as a storage solutions leader from components to systems to services," said Rocky Pimentel, President of Global Markets and Customers at Seagate. "Reduxio has built an architecture that can truly leverage the capabilities of hard disk drives, solid state storage, and future non-volatile technologies together in a single system. We believe that systems that successfully integrate multiple media types can deliver compelling price/performance and reliability benefits and will have a unique position in the market."
"Reduxio was created with the vision that the rapidly evolving enterprise storage space needs a new disruptive architecture." said Kobi Rozengarten, Chairman of Reduxio and General Partner at JVP. "In just two years, Reduxio's team has proven its ability to provide the most advanced solutions to this rapidly growing space."
Reduxio™ is building the next-generation enterprise hybrid storage arrays that provides breakthrough cost and capacity savings for customers. Reduxio's revolutionary new storage operating system implements active tiering across multiple tiers, NoDup™in-line deduplication and compression, and BackDating™for infinite data recovery.
Reduxio's multi-tier infinite storage systems are specifically designed for today's storage environments focusing on cloud, virtualization and structured data sets. Reduxio's operating system and next generation smart placement algorithms will redefine price/performance and functionality for enterprise storage buyers.
Reduxio was founded by leaders from IBM, EMC, NetApp and Dell, and is backed by Seagate Technology, JVP, Carmel Ventures and Intel Capital.
Seagate is a world leader in hard disk drivesand storage solutions. Learn more at www.Seagate.com. Seagate and Seagate Technology are registered trademarks of Seagate Technology LLC.
The names of companies mentioned herein are the trademarks of their respective owners.
Samanage, provider of the only multi-tenant, unified service desk and asset management cloud solution on the market, announced today a number of new product enhancements to its solution including real time notifications, more collaboration with multiple approvers, and more.
The latest updates continue to allow for a better service desk experience, better collaboration among IT team members and a higher level of end user customer service provided through Samanage.
Since May 2014, Samanage has delivered more than 330 deploys to production that were instantly available for the entire customer base. Samanage's agile business model and true-cloud platform uniquely positions them to deploy daily updates and quickly respond to customer requests via their active and engaged online community of users.
"The development team is very active in the community forum and respond quickly to suggestions," said Boyd Tracy, Manager of Business Technology at eSource. I have been very impressed with the level of dialog between the developers and the users regarding improvements to the tool."
Some of the key highlights in the last three months include:
Real-time notification – in-app real-time notifications of service related events, just like Google or Linkedin, helps save time in resolving service requests and improve users productivity.
Multiple Approvers – better control of Change Advisory Board (CAB) approvals in Change Management module.
Custom Forms and Fields – capture specific information for each category and sub-category submitted via the self-service portal helps narrow down data collection.
Recurring catalog requests – easily schedule recurring service requests and business workflows across the organization.
Reorder service catalog variables – new drag and drop usability makes it easier to create and edit service catalog items.
Samanage CEO, Doron Gordon, says that the company has always been built around the idea of agile development, and outstanding customer service.
"Our philosophy has always been to build beautiful software that people love to use," said Gordon. "As a multi-tenant, true-cloud solution, all of our customers run on a single instance of the software which allows us to make product updates quickly and seamlessly with no downtime for upgrades. Samanage is unique in the marketplace in that it does not have versions or a lengthy release cycle. Unlike most IT service management platforms, the product is reviewed daily and any enhancements that are going to make life better for customers are made quickly."
(Tel Aviv – 23rd September 2014), ironSource, the world's leading digital delivery company, today announced an investment of approximately $85 million from a syndicate of strategic and institutional investors from the US, China and Europe. The funding will enable ironSource to further expand its international presence and offering, and drive adoption of its solution.
ironSource has developed a comprehensive platform to help developers improve digital discovery, delivery, distribution and monetization. The solution consists of four cores – mobileCore, installCore, displayCore and mediaCore – that connect software developers and users across devices.
ironSource has developed rapidly in a short period. The company currently handles over 5 million installs each day, and has over 50 thousand applications utilizing the mobileCore SDK. The young company has increased from 30 employees to 450 in Tel Aviv, Beijing, San Francisco, and New York.
"ironSource has enjoyed amazing growth over the last three years, opening international offices, debuting our mobile solution, augmenting our team of employees, and increasing revenue," said Tomer Bar-Zeev, CEO and Co-Founder.
In the last year ironSource has placed special emphasis on broadening its global presence, and in Q2 2014, ironSource opened an office in Beijing to strengthen ties with the Chinese market. ironSource's worldwide distribution capabilities match perfectly with the strategic decision of Chinese internet giants to gain a global footprint and increase their presence outside of China.
"This latest investment from major Chinese investors is a testament to the value ironSource is already bringing to its Chinese partners, and more importantly, our ability to help major Chinese internet players to succeed in a global market," said Bar Zeev. "China is one of today's most exciting internet and application markets, and we're looking forward to strengthening our presence there and fostering ties between Tel Aviv and Beijing."
About ironSource World leading digital distribution company ironSource offers a comprehensive platform to help developers improve digital discovery, delivery, distribution and monetization. The solution consists of four cores – installCore, mobileCore, displayCore and mediaCore. – that connect software developers and users across devices. Founded in 2009 with headquarters in Tel Aviv, ironSource has offices in San Francisco and Beijing. Please visit us at http://www.ironsrc.com.
HACKENSACK, New Jersey, Sept. 18, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- LiveU [http://www.liveu.tv/] (www.liveu.tv [http://www.liveu.tv/]), the leader in portable live video acquisition, contribution and management solutions, has announced that BT Sport has chosen LiveU's market-leading cellular uplinking technology to create Europe's first cellular newsgathering (CNG) fleet of vehicles. The deal has been led by LiveU's UK partner Garland Partners Ltd.
BT Sport has worked with LiveU and Garland Partners to equip three Vauxhall Astras with the LU500 and Xtender remote antenna technology. Each LU500 backpack unit can be connected wirelessly (up to 1,000 ft/300 meters) or via Ethernet to the Xtender that sits on top of each vehicle. The combined power and signal robustness achieved, even in congested areas like sports stadiums, is unrivalled in the market and gives the broadcaster absolute confidence.
Andy Beale, Chief Engineer with BT Sport, said: "We now have a fleet-footed and effective way of allowing sports journalists to get the story back to us. We value the flexibility and speed of deployment of the LiveU solution."
The units can be accessed and controlled remotely via LiveU Central, the company's management platform that allows full control and monitoring of the LiveU units and content via any browser-supported computer or tablet, from anywhere around the world.
LiveU's LU500 has taken the cellular bonding market by storm with its next-generation technical strength and outright performance in the field. Weighing around 1 kg (2.2 lbs), this small-sized unit is powered by LiveU's new multi-processor video encoding engine and fourth-generation patented bonding algorithms providing previously unseen levels of signal robustness in an easy-to-carry unit.
The level of video quality and reliability delivered by LiveU's technology has brought cellular uplinking into the mainstream of sports coverage, adopted by sports networks, organisations and teams worldwide, most notably in the US and Europe, for high-profile sports events.
Samuel Wasserman, LiveU's CEO, said, "We're very excited to be working with BT Sport on such an innovative and exciting project. From the outset, cellular bonding technology has been used across the sports broadcasting universe to create a far more rounded and dynamic viewer experience. CNGs are growing in popularity around the world because of the advantages our cellular bonding technology offers. LiveU's LU500 was used extensively in this year's FIFA World Cup(TM) and Sochi Winter Olympics, often combined with Xtender technology, to bring otherwise impossible live footage to viewers everywhere."
LiveU owns the patent for cellular bonding for remote newsgathering in the US and other countries. All LiveU products are based on this fourth-generation patented technology.
LiveU (www.liveu.tv [http://www.liveu.tv/]) is the leader in portable live video acquisition, contribution and management solutions. LiveU's award-winning technology enables live video transmission (HD and SD) from any location around the world. With top-tier customers in 60+ countries, LiveU's solutions are being used for breaking news and high-profile events, such as the FIFA World Cup(TM), Winter and Summer Olympic Games, US Presidential Campaign, Royal Baby, Hurricane Sandy, Super Bowls and US Collegiate Championships. From backpacks to smartphones, and satellite/cellular hybrid to external antenna solutions, LiveU offers a complete range of devices for live video coverage. LiveU's solutions include multiple 4G LTE/3G, HSPA+, WiMAX and Wi-Fi cellular links, which are optimized for maximum video quality based on the available network conditions.
BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Perfecto Mobile, the world's leader in mobile app quality, is pleased to announce its support of iOS 8. Perfecto Mobile has seen increased alertness from its customers surrounding iOS 8 updates, and believes iOS 8 will yield the fastest adoption rates of any released iOS version so far.
"As the industry leader in mobile application quality, we are committed to delivering fast support for what Perfecto Mobile anticipates to be the most rapid adoption of any mobile OS so as to ensure the application lifecycle is neither stalled nor compromised."
"The upgrade to iOS 7 and resulting changes to apps taught the industry about the impact Apple's updates have on both the general consumer as well as the mobile application developer. Within two weeks of the iOS 7 announcement, the user adoption rate was at 60 percent and apps that did not support changes to the system reported major issues with usability, performance and availability," said Roi Carmel, SVP of Product and Strategy at Perfecto Mobile. "As the industry leader in mobile application quality, we are committed to delivering fast support for what Perfecto Mobile anticipates to be the most rapid adoption of any mobile OS so as to ensure the application lifecycle is neither stalled nor compromised."
It's likely that changes to the OS will require greater device control during testing and greater flexibility of test environments. Developers and testers should make it a priority to review updates and changes from iOS 7 to iOS 8 due to the many changes that may affect testing environments and script maintenance. Based on news released by Apple, developers and testers should consider the following when testing apps on iOS 8:
For more information about Perfecto Mobile's iOS 8 support and how you can achieve greater device control and improve the flexibility of your mobile app test environment, watch a webinar here.
More than 1,000 customers, including the top Fortune 100/500 across the banking, insurance, retail, telecommunications and media industries rely on Perfecto Mobile to optimize mobile time-to-market, customer engagement, risk mitigation and costs and continuously serve their mobile users with confidence.
For more information on how Perfecto Mobile can help you confidently test, deploy and monitor your mobile apps, visit www.perfectomobile.com and follow us on Twitter: @PerfectoMobile.
Perfecto MobileKristine Englert, 1-339-927-7435Marketing firstname.lastname@example.com@perfectomobileorPAN CommunicationsNikki Festa/Katelyn Campbell, email@example.com
LiveU (www.liveu.tv), the leader in portable live video acquisition, contribution and management solutions, is unveiling its new ultra-small cellular bonding solution for global newsgathering compatible with any camera at IBC2014. The LU200 offers a very attractive price, performance and form-factor for live video transmission, expanding LiveU's product portfolio for the broadcast market. The LU200 opens new live coverage opportunities, enabling every field camera to be equipped with a bonding uplink unit.
Samuel Wasserman, LiveU's CEO, said, "With innovation as a part of our DNA, we're proud to introduce the pocket-sized LU200 device. Listening to our customers, we quickly understood the need for a mini unit based on our industry-leading bonding technology. Standing in a category of its own in the broadcast market, LiveU has raised the bar again with a new device that enriches our portfolio and provides even more options for any broadcaster field camera."
Weighing just over 500 grams, (1 lb), the LU200 is available in a pouch or camera-mount configuration, bringing two built-in modems with integrated powerful antennas in a bonded solution for any video professional. The flexible LU200 can also serve as a stand-alone video encoder with satellite integration functionality, or be used as a LiveU DataBridge mobile hotspot for all IP applications in the field.
"As we saw during the World Cup, where hundreds of LiveU devices were in action, cellular bonding is now firmly established in the mainstream broadcasting workflow", Wasserman continued.
The LU200 supports two 4G LTE/3G modems together with Wi-FI and LAN connections and includes LiveU's proprietary antenna modules for extra resiliency. The LU200 will be demonstrated at IBC2014 and become commercially available after the show.
The LU200 is the latest offering within LiveU's multi-layered live video ecosystem and can be locally or remotely managed via LiveU Central, the unified management system for LiveU's field-units. As the hub for video ingestion, LiveU Central allows broadcasters to acquire both live and recorded content from the field, preview it centrally or remotely, broadcast it live or in scheduled programming and distribute it to any location.
LiveU (www.liveu.tv) is the leader in portable live video acquisition, contribution and management solutions. LiveU's award-winning technology enables live video transmission (HD and SD) from any location around the world. With top-tier customers in 60+ countries, LiveU's solutions are being used for breaking news and high-profile events, such as the FIFA World Cup™, Winter and Summer Olympic Games, US Presidential Campaign, Royal Baby, Hurricane Sandy, Super Bowls and US Collegiate Championships. From backpacks to smartphones, and satellite/cellular hybrid to external antenna solutions, LiveU offers a complete range of devices for live video coverage. LiveU's solutions include multiple 4G LTE/3G, HSPA+, WiMAX and Wi-Fi cellular links, which are optimized for maximum video quality based on the available network conditions.
Exclusive Data From Compass Ventures to Anchor the Footprint of Data on More Than 100 Million Professionals; Seasoned B2B Pros to Join eXelate Team
NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwired - Sep 4, 2014) - eXelate, the leading independent data platform, today announced the availability of B2BX, a B2B Data as a Service Solution available directly to advertisers via its maX DMP and through its network of more than 125 media partners and platforms including AppNexus, MediaMath, Turn and more. Created to help marketers more effectively engage the hard to reach business professional audience, B2BX offers a combination of flexibility, scale, value and granularity not found in any other B2B data.
"Marketers previously had limited choice when it came to leveraging B2B data in association with premium media sources. With the launch of B2BX, eXelate, Compass and our other partners are breaking down the walled gardens and enabling marketers to find their most optimal professional audience on virtually any media source or platform," said Mark Zagorski, CEO of eXelate.
B2BX features proprietary data from eXelate's massive online publisher footprint as well as exclusive data from Compass Ventures, a premier B2B analytics provider. Reaching more than 100 million professionals across over 100 distinct segments, including Business Professionals and Small Business Owners, B2BX represents the largest, most accurate pool of B2B data available to marketers today.
"We have the most accurate professional data on the Web and are excited to be exclusively fueling eXelate's B2BX product," said Todd Love, Partner/Owner of Compass Ventures.
As part of its B2B initiative, eXelate has also announced that they have hired a seasoned B2B data pro to spearhead the business Frannie Danzinger formerly of Bizo, Gyro and Wyse Advertising will be joining the eXelate team as their VP Strategic Solutions in its New York City headquarters.
eXelate media partners have taken note. "We're excited to integrate the new B2BX data solution into our programmatic offering Audience On Demand™ (AOD), so that Publicis Groupe agencies and their clients can now benefit from more robust B2B insights," said Kelley Maves, VP of Data Solutions at VivaKi. "This, coupled with our existing data warehouse SkySkraper and extensive data and tech partnerships, will help us reach B2B audiences more accurately and at scale."
eXelate has made the B2BX data as a service solution available immediately on its premier platforms and via its maX DMP, and will be rolling it out to all of its more than 125-strong partner network in the next 30 days.
"Accurately reaching B2B audiences at scale has been a consistent challenge," said Stephanie Ewell, Senior Programmatic Buyer at Centro. "By partnering with eXelate, we'll be able to leverage the B2BX data solution in order to enable our clients to communicate with these audiences."
eXelate makes digital media more relevant for consumers and marketers through analytics, smart data and data management software. The company's ability to power smarter marketing decisions worldwide is the reason why 44 of the top 50 U.S. brands in beauty, beverages, CPG, consumer electronics, financial services, healthcare and luxury goods avail themselves of eXelate's platform connections and industry partnerships globally.
About Compass Ventures
Compass Ventures specializes in the creation of B2B information solutions with a strength in site level information compilation, verification and segmentation. The Compass Business information products fuel a multitude of applications including CRM, file enrichments, business analytics, internet display, computer hardware/software, email marketing, social media, telecommunications/mobile, cable/broadband, geo/spatial solutions, prospects/leads and financial/banking. Compass is one of the largest B2B information compilers in North America and verifies more business information in the U.S. than any other competitor. Visit www.compassventures.com to learn more.
ironSource, the world's leading digital delivery company, today announced the acquisition of mobile game studio Upopa. The studio brings mobile game creation expertise to the recently launched ironLabs, ironSource's internal innovation lab dedicated to creating new products and companies.
ironSource offers mobile and desktop developers platforms to reach relevant audiences, and to deliver and monetize their products. By using ironLabs to create a stream of new applications for all platforms, ironSource is able to maintain the perspective of the developer, and build products that directly address the needs of their user base. Adding Upopa to the ironSource portfolio allows the company to incorporate experts in mobile game development into every facet of their comprehensive offering, helping them better serve the needs of both mobile and gaming developers.
"We are always looking for ways to bring new capabilities to developers that can help them turn their ideas into sustainable and scalable businesses," said Omer Kaplan, Deputy CEO of ironSource. "Upopa's emphasis on creativity and building a truly enjoyable user-experience dovetails perfectly with ironSource's focus on providing solutions that have the best interests of both the user and the developer in mind."
Over the last year ironSource has placed a strategic emphasis on developing and growing its mobile solution, debuting mobileCore in August of 2013 to help mobile app developers successfully distribute and monetize their applications. With mobileCore working alongside ironSource's leading installer – installCore – the ironSource solution is both comprehensive and cross-platform, allowing developers to target users across their devices.
Along with ironSource's strong organic growth, the company has also pursued strategic M&As to integrate additional industry-leading solutions by other companies who demonstrate the same commitment to disruptive innovation and industry-leading solutions.
In only one year of operation, mobile game studio Upopa has already seen its games – like the incredibly popular app Hopeless – downloaded over 1,350,000 times and featured on the home pages of both the Google Play and Apple App stores.
"We're very excited to become part of the ironSource family. It's an amazing opportunity to utilize this platform to bring our work to new audiences, and to be able to leverage our unique perspective for new ironSource projects," said Niv Touboul CEO of Upopa. "From day one our main goal was to create outstanding games with a belief that great content will find is way to the players. ironSource combine a real understanding of what developers need with a commitment to giving users the best possible experience and we are thrilled to become part of it."
The ironSource team will feature the Company platforms and products at DMEXCO 2014 in Cologne, Germany, Sept 10-11, Hall 6.1 Aisle A No. 041a.
World leading digital distribution company ironSource, offers a complete ecosystem for downloadable applications, including all aspects of user acquisition, conversion, monetization, integrated analytics and optimization. ironSource platforms include installCore, mobileCore, displayCore and mediaCore. Founded in 2009 with headquarters in Tel Aviv, ironSource has offices in San Francisco and Beijing. ironSource is a privately held company backed by Carmel Ventures, an affiliate of the Viola Group. For more information, please visit us at http://www.ironsrc.com.
(Reuters) - Israel-based ironSource said on Thursday it has acquired mobile game studio Upopa, adding mobile game creation expertise to its new innovation lab, ironLabs.
Financial details were not disclosed.
IronSource helps mobile and desktop application developers distribute their apps and make money off of them. The acquisition of Upopa will enable ironSource to incorporate experts in mobile game development, helping it better serve the needs of mobile and gaming developers, the company said.
"We are always looking for ways to bring new capabilities to developers that can help them turn their ideas into sustainable ... businesses," said Omer Kaplan, deputy chief executive of ironSource.
Over the last year ironSource has focused on developing and growing its mobile offering.
In one year of operation, Upopa's games have been downloaded over 1.35 million times.
SK Telecom has launched a new service "T Persona Premium" in partnership with the world's leader in mobile software management area, Red Bend Software. T Persona Premium, an upgrade version of the T Persona Standard launched in October last year, allows customers to use their mobile phone in two distinct modes, business and personal, with two separate phone numbers.
Many mobile phone users today rely on their devices for business purposes. But they are increasingly concerned about privacy and the possibility of security breaches. The T Persona Standard service addressed this problem by providing a separate space and strengthened security for business use. T Persona Premium unveiled recently adds security by using two independent operating systems to separate personal and business data while being assigned with two mobile phone numbers.
Lee Myung-geun, head of the corporate business division of SK Telecom, said, "Corporate security is essential, but employee satisfaction is also important. That's why the introduction of BYOD [bring your own device] is not easy in satisfying the two requirements at the same time. SK Telecom provides a solution that satisfies corporations' security requirements and employees' privacy concerns through the partnership with Red Bend."
Seo Jang-won, country manager of Red Bend Software's Korea office, said, "Red Bend Software provided a mobile work environment that respects personal privacy in partnership with SK Telecom. T Persona Premium will become the first service that satisfies users' urges to use mobile security features more conveniently and safely in the complex mobile environment."
RealMatch, the leader in performance-based recruitment advertising solutions for digital publishers, announced today that it has been selected as an Inc. 5000 honoree among the nation's fastest growing private companies in 2014. The list represents the most comprehensive look at one of the most important segments of the economy—America's independent entrepreneurs.
"RealMatch's place in the Inc. 5000 serves not only as recognition of our success as a company, but also as a testament to our disruptive business model which is rapidly changing the landscape of the $19 billion online recruitment advertising industry," said Gal Almog, RealMatch founder and CEO. "RealMatch continues on an accelerated growth trajectory as we build the largest and most efficient talent marketplace in conjunction with online publishers and the communities they serve."
The Inc. 5000 winners were selected among thousands of nominated privately held American companies. Distinguished previous winners include Yelp, Pandora, Timberland, Dell, Oracle, and Zillow. A full list of all Inc. 5000 winners can be found at www.inc.com/inc5000/list.
"What surprises me, even though I know it's coming, is the sheer variety of the paths our entrepreneurs take to success, thematically reflecting how our economy has evolved," says Inc. President and Editor-In-Chief Eric Schurenberg. "This year there are far more social media and far fewer computer hardware businesses than there were, say, six years ago. But what doesn't change is the fearsome creativity unleashed by American entrepreneurship."
About Inc. and the Inc. 5000
Founded in 1979 and acquired in 2005 by Mansueto Ventures, Inc. is the only major brand dedicated exclusively to owners and managers of growing private companies, with the aim to deliver real solutions for today's innovative company builders. Total monthly audience reach for the brand has grown significantly from 2,000,000 in 2010 to over 6,000,000 today. For more information, visit http://www.inc.com/.
The Inc. 500|5000 is a list of the fastest-growing private companies in the nation. Started in 1982, this prestigious list of the nation's most successful private companies has become the hallmark of entrepreneurial success. The Inc. 5000 Conference & Awards Ceremony is an annual event that celebrates their remarkable achievements. The event also offers informative workshops, celebrated keynote speakers, and evening functions. For more information on Inc. and the Inc. 5000 Conference, visit http://www.inc.com/.
About RealMatch
RealMatch is building the largest talent marketplace in conjunction with online publishers that matches employers and job seekers across the Web in the most efficient manner possible. RealMatch's performance-based recruitment advertising solution combines the most advanced job matching technology with targeted ad distribution and job-level campaign management across the largest recruitment advertising network in North America. Online publishers who leverage RealMatch's white-label solution are able to grow their revenue, attract more advertisers, and outperform their competition in terms of job seeker reach, ad performance, and quality of candidate response. For more information, visit www.realmatch.com.
Amy DeCicco Marketing Communications Manager P: (212) 419 - 4649
Sky has extended its existing deal with native advertising firm Outbrain to become the first UK brand to use its mobile services to increase performance across its apps.
The two-year deal will enable Sky to optimise performance in its Sky News and Sky Sports apps, while Sky Sports, TEAMtalk and Football365 will continue to use Outbrain's Amplify service.
Nick Herm, chief operating officer, at Sky News, said: "The ability to drive significant revenue growth while maintaining the editorial integrity associated with our brand was a crucial element behind continuing our partnership with Outbrain.
"This will help deliver a stronger return on our digital investment to date and allow us to re-invest in improving the services that we offer to users."
The deal comes as the football season kicks off, and in the three weeks of the campaign in July it prompted one million clicks and "promising commercial results".
Stephanie Himoff, UK managing director of Outbrain, said the firm was responding to the increasingly mobile landscape.
"Content discovery is now a booming marketplace as brands start to realise its true potential and native continues its ascent," WHO said.
"In 2014, we saw mobile internet pass 50 per cent of total time online. Outbrain is central to this movement and innovative multimedia partners such as Sky allow us to push the boundaries of new ideas and deliver what audiences crave in a way that fits seamlessly with publisher's sites."
Outbrain is known for its content recommendation services which run across premium publishers including the Guardian, the Telegraph and CNN.
Clarizen has upgraded its social collaboration and project management software with improvements to its user interface, charting functionality, discussion forum feature and password administration.
"This update is mostly focused on productivity enhancements, driven primarily by customer feedback," said Helena Bachar, Clarizen's product director.
Lori Bush Shepard, Clarizen's vice president of corporate marketing, said the company's Clarizen v6 product competes directly against Microsoft's SharePoint, Yammer and Project, but does so with an integrated cloud suite.
The charting improvements include new interactive bubble and scatter charts that users can "slice and dice" to visualize the data represented in them. On the user interface front, Clarizen v6 has a refined "resource load" view for managers to scan how a project's tasks are distributed among team members.
In addition, Clarizen simplified the process for inserting action items to discussion forum posts via a new "hotkey" drop-down menu for creating items like tasks, requests and projects. The password management feature is now more granular, letting administrators establish a maximum number of authentication attempts and the length of user "lock out" times.
Clarizen comes in three editions: Professional, which costs US$29.95 per user/month, Enterprise ($44.95 per user/month), and Unlimited ($54.95 per user/month). Those prices are based on a 36-month plan paid fully in advance. However, in each edition customers can buy licenses that are less expensive for users who don't need access to all of the functionality of the full product.
The company's about 2,500 clients include Mazda, Marketo, DHL, Sony, Disney, FedEx, Roche and Ricoh.
Clarizen, founded six years ago and based in San Mateo, California, recently closed a $35 million funding round led by Goldman Sachs, bringing its total money raised to about $90 million. Other backers include Benchmark Capital, Carmel Ventures, DAG Ventures, Opus Capital and Vintage Investment Partners.
Enterprise Work Collaboration Leader Recognized for Significant Growth and Leadership
Clarizen, the leader in enterprise work collaboration software, today announced it has been named to the JMP Securities "Hot 100: The Best Privately Held Software Companies" list for 2014. The report highlights the leading private companies in the software industry as identified by the software equity research team at JMP Securities, a full-service San Francisco-based investment bank.
Clarizen's award-winning enterprise solution enables companies to go from idea creation to execution by connecting social context, tasks and projects in a single cloud-based solution. Clarizen's inclusion on this highly regarded list highlights its continued market momentum and its innovative vision of changing the future of work.
Now in its sixth year, the 'Hot 100' identifies leading privately held software companies that show exceptional progress and potential within their sectors. Companies are selected each year based on the evaluation of multiple criteria, including financial growth, products and services, quality of leadership, customers and market potential.
"At Clarizen, we're setting out to transform how work gets done, connecting unstructured conversations with structured work to help enterprises become real-time, high-performance organizations," said Avinoam Nowogrodski, Clarizen founder and CEO. "It is rewarding to have our innovation and growth recognized through our inclusion in "The Hot 100."
In addition to being named to the JMP Hot 100 list, Clarizen has already received numerous accolades in 2014, including:
The Work Graph
The way most companies work is broken. First we build work groups, and then we engage in conversations, which may become actions and, ideally, these actions become deliverables. Each of these typically live in disconnected " islands" of activity, managed by different systems. Clarizen is different in that it connects these islands into a "work graph" that is organically created through the act of getting work done. The work graph enables collaboration that drives results, turning every organization into a high-performance operation.
Clarizen is the leader in enterprise-class work collaboration and project management solutions that harness the power of the cloud to get work done efficiently, effectively and with better results. Fast to deploy and easy to use, Clarizen is redefining enterprise collaboration by connecting social context with tasks and projects to drive increased productivity and profitability. Clarizen fuels the high-performance teams of more than 2,300 organizations across 76 countries, including dozens of the Fortune 500. Most recently, Gigaom Research rated Clarizen at the top in its Sector RoadMap: process based collaboration in 2014 report. Founded in 2006, Clarizen is privately held with offices in San Mateo, California and Hod Hasharon, Israel. For more information, visit www.clarizen.com.
Clarizen Contact: Jen Howard Clarizen 650-544-2937
Samanage, provider of the only unified service desk and asset management cloud solution, has been named to the Triangle Business Journal's 2014 Best Places to Work. This is the second consecutive year Samanage has been named to this exclusive list of top employers in the Triangle region.
"We are thrilled to once again make this exclusive list of top employers in the region," said Darroll Buytenhuys, Samanage COO. "What I am most proud of in building Samanage is the exceptional group of individuals we have on the team. The formula for building a great company starts and ends with great people. The exceptional commitment and passion this team demonstrates every single day toward each other and for our customers is extraordinary. "
Samanage is one of 50 companies that were named the 2014 Best Places to Work in the Triangle. Inclusion on the list was based on an employee-survey process facilitated by Quantum Market Research. Employers were evaluated on specific criteria including positive work environment, company culture, leadership support and overall employee benefits. The Triangle Business Journal will honor these companies at an awards banquet on Friday, September 26 at the Durham Convention Center.
"It is important to all of us at Samanage that we continue to build a company where employees love coming to work," Buytenhuys said. "We put an emphasis on employee engagement and benefits because we truly value the contributions our employees make to each other and our customers. Happy employees equals happy customers."
Samanage recently moved into their new corporate headquarters in Cary, NC. There are currently 40 employees, with plans to continue to grow that number rapidly throughout the year and next year.
Today's recognition follows the company's recent announcement that it was chosen by AlwaysOn as one of the 2014 AlwaysOn Global 250, an award bestowed on the top private companies that are creating technology innovations for the Global Silicon Valley. In addition, Samanage has been recently been named to the 2014 AlwaysOn OnDemand Top 100 Companies to Watch, named a finalist for the Service Desk Institute Service & Support Best Vendor Awards, and earlier this year was named a finalist for Red Herring's Top 100 North America award.
About Samanage Samanage provides the only true multi-tenant, unified service desk and asset management cloud solution on the market today. Our always new software delivers an unmatched user experience and enables code-free customization, allowing customers to fully deploy a robust IT Service Management (ITSM) solution in less than 14 days. Our goal is to help customers deliver a superior service experience to their end users, and real value throughout their organization by improving asset control, empowering end users, and maximizing resources.
BOSTON, Jul 22, 2014 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Perfecto Mobile , the leader in mobile application quality, today announced a benchmark survey, " Why Mobile Apps Fail ." The results, based on insights from nearly 900 respondents from a variety of industries including high tech, financial services and telecommunications, explored the top challenges faced by testers and end users, and how issues can be effectively addressed to minimize defects in mobile apps before they are launched.
According to the survey results, almost half of mobile application issues are identified by users, essentially making users the final QA step. The survey revealed that 44 percent of the defects are found by the user, 24 percent from direct feedback, and another 20 percent from public user reviews (e.g. in app stores). When asked to rank the types of issues most frequently encountered by mobile app users, user interface issues, performance, functionality and device compatibility were at the top of the list.
"Enterprises spend months investing, planning and building an app to coordinate with the company's mobile strategy, and when it launches they want it to be successful and have the same quality experience across all mobile platforms for every unique user. Having users discover bugs and then abandon the app not only tarnishes the brand reputation, it diminishes the investment and value that went into building the app, and negatively impacts the business," said Eran Yaniv, CEO, Perfecto Mobile. "Our survey explores exactly what challenges enterprises face in mobile testing and how to improve overall app quality."
The survey identified the top three challenges in mobile testing: insufficient device coverage (63 percent); lack of reliable automation (48 percent); and, needing more coverage to execute test scenarios than time permits (47 percent). Survey respondents believed the most critical measures to reduce mobile app defects are more functional testing, more device/OS coverage and more performance testing.
To overcome these challenges and ensure a better user experience and improve overall app quality, Perfecto Mobile offers the following tips:
Utilize a cloud-based Device-as-a-Service : assuring sufficient device and OS coverage can help teams focus on testing, not managing devices;
Use a tool that can support continuous, unattended testing : improve efficiency by embracing automation that enables testers to test more with fewer resources and greater consistency; and
Deploy a monitoring system : providing early detection of performance issues before they impact users will help to improve quality for users.
For more details about and to download the Perfecto Mobile 2014 Benchmark Survey, "Why Mobile Apps Fail," please visit http://info.perfectomobile.com/report-why-apps-fail.html .
More than 1000 customers, including the top Fortune 100/500 across the banking, insurance, retail, telecommunications and media industries rely on Perfecto Mobile to optimize mobile time-to-market, customer engagement, risk mitigation and costs and continuously serve their mobile users with confidence.
For more information on how Perfecto Mobile can help you confidently test, deploy and monitor your mobile apps, visit www.perfectomobile.com and follow us on Twitter: @PerfectoMobile .
Photos/Multimedia Gallery Available: http://www.businesswire.com/multimedia/home/20140722005485/en/
SOURCE: Perfecto Mobile
Perfecto Mobile Kristine Englert, 1-339-927-7435 Marketing Communications firstname.lastname@example.com @perfectomobile or PAN Communications Nikki Festa/Katelyn Campbell, 617-502-4300
TradAir, the leading provider of front office optimization solutions, announces the appointments of Brian Andreyko as Head of Strategy and Corporate Development and Rob Wing as Managing Director, Head of Sales.
Brian Andreyko joins TradAir from MakoFx where he was CEO. Prior to MakoFx Brian was EVP and member of the executive team at ICAP Electronic Broking, and was Global Head of EBS Product and Development. Before joining ICAP he was COO and Chief of Staff at Currenex, where he was part of the executive team responsible for turning the company around before its acquisition by State Street.
Rob Wing joins TradAir with over 17 years of sales experience across technology solutions. In his role, he is responsible for increasing sales globally and interfacing with clients on a day-to-day basis.
Before joining TradAir, Rob was at Currenex for seven years in key roles, most recently as Sales Director and Vice President for EMEA, with responsibility for the sale of technology solutions to banks, hedge funds, brokers and white label partners. He started his FX career on the FX sales desk at Worldspreads.
Illit Geller, CEO, TradAir said: "We are delighted to welcome both Brian and Rob to TradAir. Brian brings with him a wealth of experience in both corporate and product strategy development and I look forward to working with him as we seek to further develop the business. Rob's knowledge and sales experience stands us in good stead to expand our customer base around the world."
New Partners Include Washington Post, Diversity on Demand, Lancaster Newspapers Inc., and Many More
NEW YORK, July 16, 2014 -- RealMatch announced today it continues its rapid growth trajectory in the online recruitment advertising industry with the launch of 55 new job board platform and posting distribution deals in the first half of 2014 with leading newspapers, trade publishers, broadcasting and online media companies. New affiliate partners include highly reputable brands such as the Washington Post, Diversity On Demand, Lancaster Newspapers, Inc., Expo Web, and Utah MediaOne Group.
Hundreds of digital publishers have turned to RealMatch to power their online job boards and job posting distribution services in order to generate new revenue. RealMatch's unique white-label recruitment advertising solution significantly boosts overall job board performance enabling publishers to better compete in their individual markets and attract new advertisers.
"RealMatch's ability to deliver a true performance-based recruitment advertising solution for digital publishers has fueled the rapid expansion of our network. A bigger network means wider reach and better performance for our partners' job posting services," said Gal Almog, founder and CEO of RealMatch. "We welcome our new partners and look forward to helping them achieve success in their markets."
RealMatch has developed the most sophisticated job posting optimization, targeted distribution, and job matching technologies that produce much higher qualified applicant response rates compared to traditional job boards. In addition, RealMatch partners benefit from an increase in site traffic and audience engagement with RealMatch's innovative approach to recruitment advertising.
Samanage, provider of the only unified service desk and asset management cloud solution, announced today that David Marrow has joined its executive leadership team as vice president of global sales. Marrow will lead the global sales team, building capacity to scale over the next several years, setting strategic direction of the sales organization and managing the sales forecast and predictability.
"The ITSM mid-market is ripe for disruption, and Samanage is uniquely positioned to capture significant market share," said Doron Gordon, Samanage CEO. "To continue our growth rate of 30% quarter over quarter, we need the kind of leadership David brings to a team. His wealth of experience building and leading successful sales teams will be a critical asset as we prepare Samanage for the next stage of growth."
Prior to Samanage, Marrow served as president and co-founder of Kalloop, a SaaS-based employee scheduling system, and in director of sales positions for UL Workplace Health and Safety, and Syncfusion. His considerable sales experience in the tech arena also includes building strong sales teams and results at SolarWinds (EMEA and US) and Red Hat (APAC).
"One of the things that attracted me most to Samanage is the unique and immediate time to value the solutions bring to customers," commented Marrow. "The primary focus is on delivering an outstanding user experience with exceptional usability and simplicity, combined with the level of sophistication and functionality required to manage complex IT environments. I'm excited to be part of a team that provide such great business agility and customer service."
Marrow earned his bachelor's degree in Communications with a concentration in Public Relations from North Carolina State University.
About Samanage Samanage provides the only true multi-tenant, unified service desk and asset management cloud solution on the market today. Our always new software delivers an unmatched user experience and enables code-free customization, allowing customers to fully deploy a robust IT Service Management (ITSM) solution in less than 14 days. Our goal is to help customers deliver a superior service experience to their end users, and real value throughout their organization by improving asset control, empowering end users, and maximizing resources. Learn more at: http://www.samanage.com.
Viola Group CFO Event is a gathering of CFOs of leading Hi-Tech and Start-Up Companies, mainly from the Viola Group portfolio, for networking, sharing of experience and learning from each other.
The agenda includes presentations and best practices on various topics that are relevant for the professional CFO in his daily work.
Samanage, provider of the only unified service desk and asset management cloud solution, announced today it was chosen by AlwaysOn as one of the AlwaysOn Global 250 winners. The AlwaysOn list represents the top private companies that are creating technology innovations for the Global Silicon Valley.
Inclusion in the AlwaysOn Global 250 signifies leadership amongst its peers and game-changing approaches and technologies that disrupt existing markets and entrenched players in the Global Silicon Valley. Samanage was specially selected by the AlwaysOn editorial team and industry experts, including investors, bankers, journalists and industry insiders spanning the globe, based on the following criteria: innovation, market potential, commercialization, stakeholder value and media buzz.
Samanage and the AlwaysOn Global 250 companies will be honored at AlwaysOn's 12th Annual Innovation Summit July 29-30 in Mountain View, CA.
"As the expansion of the mobile and cloud markets continue, the companies on this year's AlwaysOn Global 250 are racing to provide business and consumer users with the best products and services," says Tony Perkins, founder and editor of AlwaysOn. "More legacy industries are being redefined by the innovation community, making the companies on this year's AlwaysOn Global 250 the highest-growth opportunities in today's private marketplace."
The AlwaysOn Global 250 winners were selected from among thousands of domestic and international technology companies nominated by investors, bankers, journalists and industry insiders. The AlwaysOn editorial team conducted a rigorous three-month selection process to finalize the 2014 list.
"We're honored to be recognized as one of the top emerging companies creating new business opportunities in the Global Silicon Valley," said Ginny Mahaney, VP Marketing for Samanage. "Samanage has experienced tremendous growth in the mid-market and emerging enterprise global organizations as a result of the innovation we bring to the service management industry."
Today's recognition follows the company's announcement that it was included in the 2014 AlwaysOn OnDemand Top 100 Companies to Watch and named a finalist for the Service Desk Institute Service & Support Best Vendor Awards. Samanage also recently announced that it was named a finalist for Red Herring's Top 100 North America award.
A full list of the AlwaysOn Global 250 winners can be found on the AlwaysOn website at: http://www.aonetwork.com/
About AlwaysOn AlwaysOn is the leading business media brand connecting and informing the entrepreneurial community in the Global Silicon Valley. Founded by Red Herring founding editor, Tony Perkins in 2003, AlwaysOn's mission is to continue to lead the industry by empowering its readers, event participants, sponsors, bloggers, and advertisers like no other media brand.
Read the full story at http://www.prweb.com/releases/2014/07/prweb12007758.ht
ironSource, the world's leading digital delivery platform, today announced the launch of ironLabs, an internal innovation center focused on the creation of new software applications and companies.
ironLabs helps preserve ironSource's knack for disruptive innovation even as the company continues to grow and expand, by promoting and encouraging the developers working with ironSource to design and build innovative new applications.
ironSource has created market leading platforms for connecting developers with potential users and providing effective monetization mechanisms. ironSource delivers millions of desktop and mobile installs monthly, but ironLabs serves to strengthen the company's knowledge regarding the likes and needs of users. By distributing and monetizing the internal ironLabs products, ironSource also learns first-hand how to best meet developers' often changing needs.
"Fostering the development of internal divisions and products helps us keep a developers' perspective so our core products continue to answer their needs," said Tomer Bar-Zeev, CEO of ironSource. "We developed our original platform to alleviate the pain points we encountered as developers, and want to make sure we stay true to that approach. We understand what developers need, because we are developers ourselves."
ironLabs is just one of the ways ironSource maintains its startup DNA as the company's rapid growth continues. Several consumer-facing projects developed by the ironLabs team include the popular iOS app good weather, desktop and android game platform Gameo, and the cross-platform application Spots.
"Each one of our products is a startup inside the larger company," commented Sagi Benbasat, the General Manager of ironLabs. "And we develop with the pace and energy as any other startup."
The innovative products and services handled by ironLabs are featured on the newly updated ironSource website.
ironSource will present its platforms and products at booth 304 at Casual Connect San Francisco July 22-24.
Boston, MA - June 26, 2014 – Perfecto Mobile, provider of the MobileCloud™ Mobile App Quality Platform, today announced a partnership with CA Technologies to help enterprises deploy mobile applications with confidence. Under the terms of the agreement, CA Technologies will resell Perfecto Mobile's MobileCloud as part of its solutions. CA MobileCloud will allow users to achieve optimal results from testing, accelerate application delivery, improve quality and reduce costs through automated mobile application testing on real devices located in the cloud.
"Mobile mandates fast delivery and the cloud is an essential element of agile development. The combination of these two messages is a shift in the way the software development lifecycle (SDLC) market has operated previously," said Eran Yaniv, CEO, Perfecto Mobile. "By integrating our MobileCloud Mobile App Quality Platform to the industry's leading mobile-ready service virtualization solution from CA Technologies – DevOps and QA/testing teams can now virtualize services while testing their apps on real mobile devices that operate in real-world conditions and perform automated, reliable, cross-platform tests to deliver higher quality apps faster."
This partnership represents a shared vision by Perfecto Mobile and CA Technologies, bringing value closer to DevOps teams as they become tightly integrated and highly virtualized, automated and managed. These teams can now achieve value in their development by combining pre-existing knowledge of CA Service Virtualization capabilities with real cloud-based mobile environments and automated testing for optimal quality. With CA MobileCloud, a suite of real devices and networks available 24X7 in the cloud, organizations reduce an application's time to market without sacrificing the quality of the application.
"Software applications, including mobile apps are becoming increasingly important for all businesses, yet quality, time-to-market and development costs continue to be significant challenges," said Shridhar Mittal, general manager, Application Delivery, CA Technologies. "Enterprises using CA MobileCloud will help developers 'shift left' and deliver the quality applications their customers have come to expect."
This technology is available now through CA Technologies (ca.com/sv)
NEW YORK, June 30, 2014 /PRNewswire/ --Outbrain, the world's largest content discovery platform*, has today released a new set of content guidelines designed to update the parameters of what content it will accept across its growing network. Revised annually, the updated guidelines are the latest move by the category leader to ensure readers and publishers come into contact with the most interesting, authentic and, above all, trusted content.
"Maintaining reader trust has and always will be our number one priority," said Yaron Galai, co-founder and CEO of Outbrain. "As the industry recognizes the promise of content discovery, we believe that, in order to create a long-term and sustainable future, the industry must abide by one simple premise - content recommendations should point to genuine content that is valuable to the reader."
Outbrain's content guidelines, which are publicly available athttp://www.outbrain.com/amplify/guidelines/ and must be adhered to by all customers placing recommended links, make clear that only content which is informational and/or has intrinsic entertainment value to the reader, should appear on Outbrain network sites. Links that drive to commercials, infomercials, advertising copy, or self-promotional content will not be permitted into the system.
In addition, the content discovery leader has put in place a number of other initiatives that underpin its 'always-on' focus on user trust:
Established in 2006, Outbrain was the first to market with its content discovery platform and has led the market ever since, raising $99 million to date and more than doubling revenue year-over-year for the past four years. Outbrain's global footprint extends to 17 national offices, and the company now serves over 150 billion personalized content recommendations every month.
As it rolls out these new guidelines, Outbrain continues to build on its strong growth trajectory. In April, Outbrain had 190,083,000 million unique visitors in the U.S., according to ComScore, and is outpacing Facebook in reach in leading indicator markets like Germany.
PlayBuzz, the leading global network of online playful content, announced today a $3 million Series A funding led by Carmel Ventures, a member of the Viola Group. Daniel Cohen, General Partner at Carmel led the investment and joined the Company's board of directors.
PlayBuzz platform is used by thousands of web publishers, bloggers and brands, to create quizzes, polls, lists and other formats of engaging, viral content that can be embedded on any web site and mobile app. Six months after launch, the company's website at www.PlayBuzz.com serves more than 40 million monthly unique users and is ranked among the top 50 sites in US traffic according to Quantcast. The company was founded in 2012 by Shaul Olmert, Yaron Buznach and Tom Pachys and employees 14 people out of its offices in Tel Aviv, Israel.
Shaul Olmert, co-founder & CEO of PlayBuzz said: "Playful content has taken the internet by storm. These popular content formats are the most engaging and viral forms of online media. PlayBuzz brings this innovation to every publisher, and created a network where thousands of leading publishers share their playful content items on the open web".
Daniel Cohen, General Partner at Carmel Ventures added: "PlayBuzz provides an outstanding experience to publishers and brands, allowing them to leverage user generated content, or create original content and embed it on their products to increase engagement, viral distribution and monetization. We are happy to partner with PlayBuzz's talented management team and support them while building the leading global platform for playful content".
About PlayBuzz
PlayBuzz is the leading global network of online playful content. its platform is used by thousands of web publishers, bloggers and brands, to create quizzes, polls, lists and other formats of engaging, viral content that can be embedded on any web site and mobile app. The company was founded in 2012 by Shaul Olmert, Yaron Buznach and Tom Pachys and employees 14 people out of its offices in Tel Aviv, Israel. For more details visit the company's website at www.PlayBuzz.com.
About Carmel Ventures
Enterprise Work Collaboration Leader Recognized for Achieving 8453% Growth
SAN MATEO, CA--(Marketwired - Dec 10, 2013) - Clarizen, the leader in enterprise work collaboration software, today announced it has been ranked the twelfth fastest-growing company in the 2013 Deloitte Technology Fast 500™ for EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa). Clarizen's impressive growth rate of 8453 percent between 2008 and 2012, underscores the company's growing market momentum and the increasing need for organizations to energize and empower high-performance teams.
"It is truly a remarkable accomplishment to be named among EMEA's 500 fastest-growing technology companies," said Clarizen CEO Avinoam Nowogrodski. "As we continue to see our business accelerate, we remain committed to our vision of leading the future of work by connecting social context with tasks and projects to drive increased productivity and profitability. Our success is determined by our customer's success and we truly thank Deloitte for this great honor."
Now in its 13th year, the annual Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited (DTTL) Global Technology, Media & Telecommunications (TMT) industry group's program ranks the fastest growing public and private technology, media, telecommunications, life sciences, and clean technology companies from 24 countries in the EMEA region, based on percentage revenue growth over a five-year period. This year's Fast 500 list had an overall average revenue growth rate of 1,403 percent, a slight decrease from the 1,549 percent growth rate for 2012. This year's program received more than 1,000 submissions and the software sector represented 43 percent of the overall rankings, followed by the Internet sector with 22 percent.
The full list of ranked companies, as well as additional details on the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 program, can be accessed at www.deloitte.com/fast500emea.
About the Deloitte Technology Fast 500™ EMEA
Technology Fast 500, conducted by Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited (DTTL), provides a ranking of the fastest growing technology, media, telecommunications and green technology companies -- both public and private -- in Europe, Middle East & Africa. Technology Fast 500 award winners are selected based on percentage fiscal year revenue growth from 2009 to 2013. In order to be eligible for Technology Fast 500 recognition, companies must own proprietary intellectual property or technology that is sold to customers in products that contribute to a majority of the company's operating revenues. Companies must have base-year operating revenues of at least 50,000 EUROS, and current-year operating revenues of at least 800,000 EUROS. Additionally, companies must be in business for a minimum of five years, and be headquartered within Europe, Middle East & Africa.
Clarizen is the leader in enterprise-class work collaboration and project management solutions that harness the power of the cloud to get work done efficiently, effectively and with better results. Fast to deploy and easy to use, Clarizen is redefining enterprise collaboration by connecting social context with tasks and projects to drive increased productivity and profitability. Clarizen fuels the high-performance teams of more than 2,000 organizations across 76 countries, including more than 25 of the Fortune 500. In 2013, Clarizen received the SIIA CODiE Award for "Best Product Management Solution." Founded in 2005, Clarizen is privately held with offices in San Mateo, California and Hod Hasharon, Israel. For more information, visit www.clarizen.com.
Doro AB, the global market leader in easy-to-use mobile phones, is pleased to announce it has selected Red Bend Software to provide its smartphone users with firmware over-the-air (FOTA) updates.This relationship further strengthens Doro's commitment to offering a superior mobile experience to people who want an easy-to-use device. With Red Bend, Doro smartphone users will receive new versions of Android downloaded directly to their device in a fast, safe and convenient manner. This ensures that Doro users seamlessly receive the latest updates and improvements to keep their smartphones performing perfectly.Red Bend will manage the end-to-end FOTA service, from hosting to delivery of new software updates. The service is included in the recently launched Doro Liberto 810, the Swedish company's recently launched easy-to-use Android smartphone. This sleek and stylish device brings a rich and inclusive smartphone experience to many more people by taking them on a positive journey with their technology. This partnership will make that journey even better.Thomas Bergdahl, VP Product Development at Doro said: Doro is a pioneer in the mobile industry. We created the easy smartphone market and working with Red Bend will help us to facilitate the expansion of our value add service-led propositions. There is a clear future opportunity here for remotely managed lifestyle and support services. Again we have opened up a new market opportunity for operators, resellers and service providers."Over-the-air updating is the most efficient and reliable way to deliver new software to Android devices, and no one does this better than Red Bend. By working with Red Bend, Doro can ensure its smartphones are continuously updated, offer innovative services and deliver an exceptional user experience that keeps customers loyal, said Dean Martin, vice president of EMEA, at Red Bend Software.Further informationPlease contact the Doro UK & Ireland press office: firstname.lastname@example.com or +44(0)20 3428 5137Stay connected Twitter @DoroUK_Ireland Facebook DoroUKIrelandAbout DoroDoro AB is a Swedish public company formed in 1974. It released its pioneering easy-to-use mobile phone in 2007 and today is the global market-leader within the category. Doro products and solutions are available in thirty countries spanning five continents. These include; mobile phones and smart devices, applications and software, fixed line telephony, telecare and mobile health solutions. Doro removes barriers to adoption of new technologies and holds numerous international awards in recognition of its product designs and innovations. Doro shares are quoted on the Nasdaq OMX Stockholm exchange, Nordic List, Small Companies. Revenues of SEK 837.5 million were reported for 2012.www.doro.comAbout Red BendRed Bends OTA Updating Service for Android is a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) for device manufacturers to update mobile devices with the latest features, applications and improvements. The solution includes Red Bends vRapid Mobile and vDirect Mobile client software which are quickly integrated into any mobile device, and the Red Bend Software Management Center hosted in the cloud from which OEMs can manage devices over the air. Red Bend has been adopted by more than 80 manufacturers and operators to manage more than 1.75 billion mobile phones, tablets and other connected devices.
Red Bend Software, the market leader in Mobile Software Management (MSM) with more than 1.75 billion Red Bend-Enabled devices, today announced that the company has reached the significant milestone of providing its vRapid Mobile firmware over-the-air (FOTA) updating software in 150 million mobile phones manufactured by leading Chinese ODMs and OEMS including Huawei, ZTE, TCL, Lenovo, Haier, SIMCom, Leadcore, Borqs and Tianyu.There are now more than 200 Red Bend-enabled mobile device models in China.Globally, vRapid Mobile is adopted by more than 80 mobile operators and device manufacturers. It is the cornerstone software in mobile phones and connected devices used to provide new features, applications and operating system updates. vRapid Mobile is the most widely adopted FOTA solution because it provides the fastest and easiest way to remotely update software and it ensures 100% completion of software updates, even if there is a loss of power or network connection.'Since entering the market in China 10 years ago, Red Bend has been honored to earn the trust of Chinese mobile operators such as China Mobile and dozens of Chinese OEMs and ODMs. Our understanding of the market, technological knowledge, OMA-standards-based solutions and local professional services ensure that our customers can keep devices updated and consumers satisfied,' said Danny Wang, Red Bend Software Country Manager of Greater China.Some of the most popular Red Bend-Enabled devices available in China are:1) Huawei: Ascend D2 Android phone with 5-inch FHD Screen, Quad Core and 1.5GH 2G RAM2) TCL: Alcatel OT871A sold by AT&T, equipped with Qwerty Keyboard Texting3) ZTE: AT&T Avail 2 (Z992) with Android 4.1.1 operating system, 3.5' touch screen, 2 MP camera and VGA camcorder and Multitasking CapabilitySuccess in Mobile Enables Expansion to New MarketsThe need for over-the-air software management is increasing as more and more devices become connected. Morgan Stanley predicts that there will be 75 billion connected devices by 2020. The 'Internet of Things' originally defined to include laptops and PCs now includes semiconductor technology embedded into all types of machine-to-machine (M2M) and consumer electronics.'Red Bend is leveraging its success in mobile and bringing its solutions to other markets including the enterprise, automotive and M2M. All of the software inside the predicted 75 billion devices will need to be managed with the most trusted mobile software management solution. We are already helping automotive OEMs keep their IVI systems and electronic control units up to date, saving warranty and recall costs and increasing customer satisfaction and we are excited about the opportunities in other industries.'About Red Bend SoftwareRed Bend Software, the leader in Mobile Software Management (MSM) with more than 1.75 billion Red Bend-Enabled devices, makes mobile devices and services continuously better in a rapidly changing world. Red Bend is the only company that provides standards-based products and solutions for software management, device management and mobile virtualization that work on any mobile phone and connected device uniformly, efficiently and securely over the air. Red Bend enables its customers to stay competitive in a fast-moving market by helping them deliver high-value services on an increasing number of connected devices with growing software complexity. More than 80 leading device manufacturers, mobile operators, semiconductor vendors and automotive companies worldwide trust Red Bend with their most important assets-the mobile and connected devices their consumers depend on. www.redbend.com
LiveU's video uplink solutions have been deployed by the University of Southern California (USC) athletic department, it was announced today, to power the school's Tunnel Vision live programming from Memorial Coliseum, coverage from road games, and stream full-length, live games online.Since the start of the 2013 football season, The Trojans have leveraged the LiveU solution to transmit pre-game and post-game live shows from the field branded as "Tunnel Vision." Coverage includes live feeds of players running onto the field for warm ups via the tunnel, Trojans Walk-by with fans down the 50 yard line seats, team prayer, cheerleader drills, Trojans mascot riding on to the field on horseback, and interviews with coaches and the Athletic Director by talent Katie Boggs in the 60 minute countdown to the game, and after the game. The show also mixes in b-roll taken earlier in the day such as players getting off the team bus, and more. USC also uses LiveU technology for other events throughout the week and the season including press conferences and banquets.Memorial Coliseum has hosted world-class sporting events ranging from Super Bowls to Olympic games. USC fans now get a new perspective of this landmark venue. "With LiveU, we can offer new unique types of very appealing content for fans, and a lot more of it," said Rich Rodriguez, USCTrojans.com Executive Producer. "This is extremely important given the length restrictions on actual game highlights we can post on our website. LiveU technology allows our fans to become 'a fly on the wall' and get a unique point of view they couldn't see before. Each live hit generates thousands of views in real time; we then post clips on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, which in turn bring in even more views."USC, which is celebrating its 125th anniversary of athletics in 2013, is one of the nation's most successful athletic programs. Currently fielding 21 men's and women's sports, the Trojans claim 120 national team championships, an unprecedented 419 Olympians and 52 NCAA Postgraduate Scholars.USC will also use LiveU for game and competitions that were never before covered live. "We discovered LiveU after building our new sand volleyball stadium and needing a cost-effective uplink solution to stream our first tournament from the venue before it was hardwired, without renting expensive satellite trucks," Rodriguez continued. "LiveU came to the rescue and was easily able to transmit high quality video, even when the stadium was crowded, thanks to LiveU's unique antennas. In fact, we now prefer to use LiveU even when a hardwired connection is available in venues such as baseball, soccer, lacrosse and others thanks to its simplicity, portability and ease-of-use."In addition, USC uses LiveU technology to streamline the posting of video highlights. "While our teams are on the road, we use LiveU to feed our ftp footage. We send post game pressers directly to PAC 12 for use on-air. Also, we send footage to our own production facility in real time, so that we can easily post all of our game highlights and related content immediately after each game. In the past, we had to wait several hours until we arrived back home to do so," added Rodriguez.LiveU, the leader in portable live video-over-cellular solutions, offers a variety of portable devices that bond together multiple cellular connections for cost-effective HD-quality video uplink from anywhere, including its LU70 backpacks, Xtender external antennas for high-quality signal even in congested sports venues, LU-Smart smartphone bonding app, and a variety of complementary video services for sports organizations.According to Tim Prukop, Head of Sports and New Media Sales at LiveU, "USC is a school with a long history of success and extremely avid fans. We are very happy that we can assist them in creating new and exciting content around their athletics programs."About LiveULiveU is the pioneer of broadcast-quality, video-over-cellular solutions that allow live video transmission (HD and SD) from any location around the world. With top-tier customers in 60+ countries, LiveU's solutions have been used for breaking news and high-profile events, including the 2012 US Presidential Campaign, London 2012 Olympics, Hurricane Sandy, 2011 British Royal Wedding, Japanese Tsunami, GRAMMY Awards® and Super Bowl. From backpacks to smartphones, LiveU offers a complete range of devices for live video coverage. LiveU's solutions include multiple 4G LTE/3G, HSPA+, WiMAX and Wi-Fi cellular links, which are optimized for maximum video quality based on the available network conditions.About USC Trojan AthleticsUSC has one of the nation's most successful athletic programs. Trojan teams have won 120 national championships (95 men's, including a national-best 82 NCAA titles, and 25 women's), more than all but 2 other schools. USC's men athletes have won more individual NCAA titles (309) than any other school (the Women of Troy have another 70 individual NCAA crowns). Troy has more Olympians, medalists and gold medalists than any school: since 1904, 419 Trojans have competed in the Games, winning 135 gold medals (with at least 1 gold in every summer Olympics from 1912), 87 silver and 64 bronze. Four Trojans have won the prestigious Sullivan Award as America's top amateur athlete: diver Sammy Lee (1953), shot putter Parry O'Brien (1959) and swimmers John Naber (1977) and Janet Evans (1989). Two Women of Troy have won the Honda-Broderick Cup as the top collegiate woman athlete of the year: Cheryl Miller (1983-84) and Angela Williams (2001-02). Trojan women have won 15 Honda Awards, as their sport's top female athlete. USC student-athletes have received 52 NCAA Postgraduate Scholarships (in the Top 10 among all schools) and Troy has had 31 first team Academic All-Americans and 4 athletes who were Rhodes Scholars. USC fields 21 intercollegiate teams, 9 men's (football, basketball, baseball, track and field, swimming and diving, tennis, golf, water polo, volleyball) and 12 women's (basketball, track and field, swimming and diving, tennis, golf, water polo, volleyball, rowing, cross country, lacrosse, sand volleyball).Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/pr/1593016#ixzz2l4fdyA79
eXelate , the leading smart data and analytics engine powering smarter digital marketing decisions, today announced it ranked 86th on Deloitte's Technology Fast 500™, a ranking of the 500 fastest growing technology, media, telecommunications, life sciences and clean technology companies in North America. eXelate grew 2,129 percent during this period. eXelate's Chief Executive Officer, Mark S. Zagorski credits the strong growth to the company's innovative new products, including consumer insights terminal eXelate optiX™, along with proven momentum and customer success with its existing suite of smart data products like the eXelate eXchange™ and eXelate conneX™, its enterprise data management solution that has attracted partners like Nielsen."We've had a great year and, with this award recognition, it keeps getting better," said Mark S. Zagorski. "Recognized as a Top 20 company in the Internet sector of The Deloitte Technology Fast 500 inspires all of us here at eXelate to continue our promise to provide the industry with innovative data and analytics products to empower digital advertisers and drive more effective marketing.""The 2013 Deloitte Technology Fast 500 companies are exemplary cases of those spurring growth in a tough market through innovation," said Eric Openshaw, vice chairman, Deloitte LLP and U.S. technology, media and telecommunications leader. "This year's list is a who's who of companies behind the most exciting and innovative products and services in the technology space. We congratulate the Fast 500 companies and look forward to what they do next.""The fastest growing companies in the US are drivers of constant innovation and operate with the agility to stay ahead of a quickly evolving marketplace, and software, biotech/pharma and internet companies continue to be at the forefront," added James Atwell, national managing partner of the Emerging Growth Company practice, Deloitte Services LP. "The companies excelling in these sectors have a startup mentality that allows them to be nimble and adapt quickly, which is why they consistently lead the list of fast-growing companies each year."About eXelateeXelate is the smart data company that powers smarter digital marketing decisions worldwide for marketers, agencies, platforms, publishers and data providers. eXelate's smart data platform provides accurate, actionable, and agile data and analytics on online household demographics, purchase intent, and behavioral propensities. Through the collection of trillions of directly measured online data points and distribution partnerships with information leaders such as Nielsen, Nielsen Catalina, MasterCard Advisors, Bizo, and more, eXelate makes online, offline, and custom modeled data sets actionable across 700M online consumers worldwide. As members of the NAI, IAB, trustE, Council for Accountable Advertising, and Evidon's Open Data Partnership, eXelate is a leader in privacy compliant advertising practices. For more information, please visit http://www.exelate.com or follow @eXelate.About Deloitte's 2013 Technology Fast 500™Technology Fast 500, conducted by Deloitte LLP, provides a ranking of the fastest growing technology, media, telecommunications, life sciences and clean technology companies -- both public and private -- in North America. Technology Fast 500 award winners are selected based on percentage fiscal year revenue growth from 2008 to 2012.In order to be eligible for Technology Fast 500 recognition, companies must own proprietary intellectual property or technology that is sold to customers in products that contribute to a majority of the company's operating revenues. Companies must have base-year operating revenues of at least $50,000 USD or CD, and current-year operating revenues of at least $5 million USD or CD. Additionally, companies must be in business for a minimum of five years, and be headquartered within North America.
Clarizen, the leader in enterprise work collaboration software, today announced its new Google Chrome™ Extension. The Clarizen Extension for Chrome enables users to seamlessly add tasks, cases and screenshots to their Clarizen account from any web page in a Chrome browser window. The free-of-charge extension enables teams in all departments to work more efficiently and achieve better results -- faster. Clarizen's enterprise work collaboration and project management solution is redefining collaboration for the enterprise by connecting social context with tasks and projects to drive increased productivity and profitability. Now with the Chrome Extension, users can quickly create a task or any case item type, upload screen shots of the currently viewed page, assign due dates and resources and connect them to existing projects, milestones or tasks directly from the web. Related documents can also easily be 'dragged and dropped' directly into the task/case, and all relevant team members are automatically updated of the changes via Clarizen's notification system. The Clarizen Chrome Extension is an essential timesaver across all team departments. For example, now marketing teams can report website bugs right from the web page with the click of a button. Simply select a task or a change request, take a screen shot, and assign resources directly from the page right into tasks or cases in Clarizen. Once the free extension is downloaded from the Chrome web store, the Clarizen icon is displayed adjacent to the URL field on the right-hand side. Users can also access the extension with a keyboard shortcut, enabling constant easy access to Clarizen from Chrome. The Chrome Extension is just one of Clarizen's integrations with Google products. Clarizen also integrates with Google Docs to enable users to link to existing Google docs, create new documents and easily manage and share with the entire team via Clarizen. To learn more about adding tasks and/or cases from any web page, watch the short Clarizen Google Chrome Extension tutorial video. About ClarizenClarizen is the leader in enterprise-class work collaboration and project management solutions that harness the power of the cloud to get work done efficiently, effectively and with better results. Fast to deploy and easy to use, Clarizen is redefining enterprise collaboration by connecting social context with tasks and projects to drive increased productivity and profitability. Clarizen fuels the high-performance teams of more than 2,000 organizations across 76 countries, including more than 25 of the Fortune 500. In 2013, Clarizen received the SIIA CODiE Award for "Best Product Management Solution." Founded in 2005, Clarizen is privately held with offices in San Mateo, California and Hod Hasharon, Israel. For more information, visit www.clarizen.com.Clarizen is a registered trademark and the Clarizen logo is a trademark of Clarizen Ltd. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
Personetics, a leading provider of predictive customer engagement solutions for the financial services industry, today announced that Bank Technology News selected it as a 2014 "Top 10 FinTech Company to Watch.""Every year we speak to hundreds of people to uncover new and exciting technology that we think will make a major impact in the financial services industry," said Penny Crosman, editor-in-chief of Bank Technology News and technology editor of American Banker. "A lot of bankers are talking about providing a seamless cross-channel customer experience and leveraging predictive analytics to help customers make better financial decisions in real-time. Personetics Smart Assistant is a promising technology that aims to change the way people interact with their banks by providing relevant real-time analytics within existing mobile and online banking channels.""It's great to be recognized by Bank Technology News, who have their finger on the pulse of the financial technology industry, for developing new technology that solves real world banking challenges," said David Sosna, CEO of Personetics. "We believe that by focusing on customer interests & needs institutions will see drastic improvements in trust and loyalty scores as well as more profitable long-term relationships, Our Solution focuses on making digital banking experiences as insightful and enjoyable for customers as shopping on Amazon®, or making a dinner reservation using Open Table®."Personetics Smart Assistant:• Personalizes insights that improve customer satisfaction• Increases banking product and service utilization• Reduces cost of servicing customersStudies have shown that delivering highly-personalized customer experiences can drive cross-sell opportunities, lower operational costs and improve customer satisfaction and loyalty.To learn why Personetics is one to watch in 2014, go to Top 10 FinTech Companies to WatchAbout Bank Technology NewsBank Technology News is written for 30,000 CIOs, CTOs and IT professionals who are responsible for identifying, recommending, purchasing and supporting the front-, middle- and back-office technology needs across all business units of their financial institutions.Bank Technology News, the industry's source of technology coverage, provides critical information and analysis on the relationship between banking strategy and technology execution at financial institutions. As banks and other financial organizations focus intently on facilitating business objectives, meeting compliance guidelines and achieving a return on investment for technology purchases, Bank Technology News focuses on the players, companies and innovations that enable institutions to play by new rules and establish benchmarks by which their performance and regulatory compliance will be enhanced.About PersoneticsPersonetics believes focusing on customer interests will help financial institutions improve trust and loyalty. To do this, firms need to promote a highly personal and relevant customer experience across all banking channels. Personetics Smart Assistant delivers contextual insights and recommendations that help consumers with their day-to-day financial lives. . Personetics gives financial institutions the power to convert passive digital adopters into active digital users while improving their overall customer experience and reducing operational costs for the institution.Personetics is backed by Carmel Ventures, Sequoia Capital and Lightspeed Venture Capital and is headquartered in New York with offices in Tokyo and Tel Aviv. For more information, visit http://www.personetics.com/.
SANTA CLARA, Calif. – November 5, 2013 – Garantia Data today announced it has raised $9 million in a series A funding round led by Bain Capital Ventures and Carmel Ventures, bringing its total funding to date to $13 million.Garantia Data already has more than 1,000 paying customers for its Redis Cloud service. Customers benefit from infinite seamless scalability, true high-availability, stable top performance and fully automated operations. The service is currently available over public clouds including Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Windows Azure, as well as platform-as-a-service (PaaS) providers such as Heroku and AppFog."Redis rules in-memory NoSQL. It is among top three database choices by developers and has become a cornerstone of new applications," said Salil Deshpande, Managing Director, Bain Capital Ventures, Palo Alto. "We invested in Garantia Data because the reliability and painless scalability of their commercial Redis offering makes Redis adoption feasible for enterprises.""The comprehensive technology developed by Garantia Data opens the door for true in-memory NoSQL computing, and is a game-changer," said Ronen Nir, general partner at Carmel Ventures. "I look forward to joining the board, and helping to advise the company on achieving its potential."Strong Growth in Redis MarketRedis is among the top three databases selected for new applications and is expected to capture 15 percent of the NoSQL market in the next few years. According to 451 Research, the NoSQL market is expected to cross $1 billion in revenue by 2016. With this investment, Garantia Data, the leading commercial Redis provider, is making a significant move in the database space to capitalize on the explosive growth of NoSQL and Redis."Redis is one of the fastest growing databases in the NoSQL space and we are continuing to see tremendous potential in the market," said Ofer Bengal, co-founder and CEO, Garantia Data. "Being a significant contributor to open source Redis and at the same time serving our more than one thousand customers commercially, we know exactly how to adapt Redis to enterprise needs. The current round of financing will enable us to further enhance Redis Cloud's core capabilities in order to meet the unique use case that Redis offers for both developers and large IT organizations."Garantia Data will be at AWS re:Invent, November 12-15, 2013 in Las Vegas, Nevada at booth 627 demonstrating its enterprise-class Redis Cloud service.About Garantia Data's FoundersThe company was founded by Ofer Bengal and Yiftach Shoolman, two serial entrepreneurs with proven track records and unique expertise in application acceleration and high performance networking.Ofer Bengal, Founder & CEOOfer is a serial entrepreneur who has founded and led several companies in the areas of data communications, telecommunications, Internet, homeland security and medical devices. Ofer was founder & CEO of RIT Technologies (NASDAQ: RITT), a provider of sophisticated telecommunications and data communications systems to major world carriers. He began his career as an aerospace engineer in the Israeli Air Force and then built his own aerospace engineering consulting firm. As a hobby, he has also invented, developed and licensed toy concepts to companies such as Milton Bradley, Hasbro and Tomy. Ofer holds a Bachelor of Science (Cum Laude) in aerospace engineering from the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology.Yiftach Shoolman, Founder & CTOYiftach is an experienced technologist, having held leadership engineering and product roles in diverse fields from application acceleration, cloud computing and software-as-a-service (SaaS), to broadband networks and metro networks. He was the founder, president and CTO of Crescendo Networks (acquired by F5, NASDAQ:FFIV), the vice president of software development at Native Networks (acquired by Alcatel, NASDAQ: ALU) and part of the founding team at ECI Telecom broadband division, where he served as vice president of software engineering. Yiftach holds a B.Sc. in Mathematics and Computer Science and has completed studies for M.Sc. in Computer Science at Tel-Aviv University.About Garantia DataGarantia Data offers enterprise-class Redis by its fully-managed Redis Cloud service. Providing infinite seamless scalability, true high availability, stable top performance and zero management, Redis Cloud enables developers and enterprise IT organizations to successfully enhance Redis operations in a variety of use cases. Redis Cloud is used every day by more than 1,000 paying customers. Privately held and backed by leading VCs, including Bain Capital Ventures and Carmel Ventures, Garantia Data's team of software veterans combines more than 150 years of aggregate experience in database technologies, application acceleration and cloud computing with a proven track record in transforming innovative ideas into viable and valuable products. For more information visit: garantiadata.com / Twitter: @garantiadata- See more at: http://garantiadata.com/press-releases/garantia-data-secures-9m-in-series-a-funding#.UoI6dflBN8E
Outbrain ,the leading content discovery platform, announced that it has closed a new round of funding of $35 million, bringing its total financing to $99 million. HarbourVest led the round with participation from Outbrain's existing investors Carmel Ventures, Index Ventures, Gemini Israel Funds, GlenRock Israel, Rhodium, and Lightspeed Venture Partners and a new participant, Vintage Partners. The company will use the new funding to continue its innovations in content discovery and expand its global business, which currently spans 13 offices. Outbrain was the first to market with its content discovery platform in 2006 and has led the category ever since, not just in terms of customers and installations, but also in its commitment to quality content and to ensuring the integrity of every recommendation it serves. Outbrain's links play a fundamental role in the content ecosystem that has emerged in recent years, and the company has been a vocal proponent of the need to maintain reader trust in order for this ecosystem to thrive, including following strict content guidelines and excluding questionable marketers from its network. Outbrain is the only content recommendation platform formally listed and audited by comScore, which estimates that its recommendations reach 83% of all Americans online and over 390 consumers globally. The company serves more than 100 billion organic and paid content recommendations per month and its links appear on the websites of the most trusted, recognized names in the industry, like CNN, Slate, ESPN, The Telegraph, Le Monde and The Guardian. "We've been watching Outbrain for some time now and have been incredibly impressed with what Yaron and the rest of the team has created," said XX. "This is a company that is built – not on spammy links or get rich quick schemes – but on a business model that puts the reader above all else. This is a company that is built to last and to dominate a growing market. HarbourVest is proud to be a part of that." "This investment comes at a pivotal moment in Outbrain's evolution. We've matured from an upstart content recommendation company to a key player in the content ecosystem and a trusted partner for the world's best brands and publishers," said Outbrain CEO Yaron Galai. "The team at HarbourVest will be an ideal partner for us as we move into our next phase of growth." *Source: comScore Media Metrix, August 2013 About Outbrain Outbrain ( www.outbrain.com ), the leading content discovery platform, is on a mission to help readers find the most interesting content online, while giving publishers and brands the ability to reach a highly engaged audience. Using personalized links, Outbrain recommends content across a network of more than 700 premium publishers, including CNN, Fox News, Hearst, Rolling Stone, US Weekly and Fast Company. Links to content on a publisher's own site increase stickiness, while links to high-quality third-party content increase site traffic and generate revenue. Outbrain is currently installed on more than 100,000 sites and generates more than 150 billion recommendations per month. Founded in 2006, the company is headquartered in New York, with 14 offices globally, including the U.S., U.K., Israel, Singapore and Australia.
CoolaData, a provider of Big Data Analytics as a Service, announced today the closing of $7.4 million in Series A funding from Greylock IL and Carmel Ventures. CoolaData improves overall customer lifecycle management by providing fully actionable, unified behavioral analytics solutions for online companies. The company's groundbreaking technology offers the ease and fast onboarding of an out-of-the box solution, combined with the scale, analytic power, flexibility and openness traditionally achieved by self-development. CoolaData's founders, Tomer Ben Moshe and Guy Greenberg, are BI/Big Data veterans and serial entrepreneurs. "CoolaData offers the ability to answer complex business questions which cannot be addressed by traditional BI tools," said the company's CEO, Tomer Ben Moshe. "Our unique, open interface allows customers to easily turn insights into actions by enabling them to embed CoolaData analytics into their own systems." The CoolaData service is in beta with several eCommerce, gaming and mobile customers. These customers benefit from a unique combination of scalability, extensibility and sophisticated analytical power, without the burden of having to invest the resources and know-how required to build a Big Data solution. The service will be generally available in the first quarter of 2014. Yoram Snir, Partner at Greylock IL and Avi Zeevi, General Partner and Co-Founder of Carmel Ventures, joined the company's board of directors. "We have seen the need for scalable, deep and open analytics capabilities provided as a service across our portfolio," said Yoram Snir of Greylock IL. "CoolaData offers a cost effective service that can replace expensive and lengthy development of Big Data capabilities for most, if not all the companies we came across". Avi Zeevi of Carmel Ventures added: "We've watched Tomer, Guy and their team at CoolaData transform the company from an innovative startup to one that delivers an advanced unified behavioral service for mobile and web analytics. It's not about pageviews anymore -- what business users value now is actionable analysis of customer behaviors." For more information about CoolaData visit the website (link), follow the company's LinkedIn page (link), Twitter handle (link) and blog (link). About Greylock IL Greylock IL is an affiliate fund of Greylock Partners with offices in Israel and London. Some of the fund's investments include: Actifio, Aeroscout, ScaleIO, iZettle, JustEat, Payoneer, Wanova and Wonga. For more information visit: www.greylockil.com (link). About Carmel Ventures Carmel is a member of the Viola Group, Israel's premier technology-focused PE group with over $2B under management. As Israel's top tier VC firm, Carmel invests in Israeli or Israeli-related early stage companies and builds global category leaders across a number of key market segments, including: software, new enterprise infrastructure, Big Data, digital media, consumer applications and semiconductors. For more information, please visit: www.carmelventures.com (link).
Samanage, an emerging leader in cloud-based IT service desk and asset management software, has secured $5 million in funding from shareholders Carmel Ventures and Gemini Israeli Ventures. This comes as Samanage closes this quarter with 30% business growth - the sixth consecutive quarter in which it has achieved such enormous expansion. The company will use the new funding to accelerate investments in product development and customer acquisition.Samanage has been singled out for continued funding for its proven ability to challenge companies like ServiceNow and BMC in the mid-market. The company's focus on delivering a great user experience, quick deployment, and consistently high ROI and low TCO, has led to a vast customer base that spans 45 countries. "We've seen incredible growth in the past few quarters and this has really been pushing us to expand," says Doron Gordon, Samanage CEO. "Our customers deserve an easy-to-use enterprise software application that they actually love to use and that's what we plan to continue rolling out in an aggressive manner to organizations looking to enhance their service, while reducing workload.""Samanage has been growing quickly and addresses a real need in the market. We clearly want to keep fostering this," says Ronen Nir, Partner at Carmel Ventures. "We're delighted to continue supporting the experienced founding team of Samanage and help them build a great company.""We see standout potential in Samanage," says Yossi Sela, Managing Partner, Gemini Israeli Ventures. "The experienced Samanage team has created a unique product with awesome user experience that is already making waves in the conservative world of IT management software. Samanage is ready to capture an even larger share of this huge market, and these funds will be directed to boost its rapid growth. "Samanage has recently announced that it has been nominated for two awards in North Carolina: the company is a finalist in the NCTA 2013 Awards, in the category of Fastest Growing Small Company; Samanage was also recognized by the Triangle Business Journal as one of the Best Places to Work in 2013. In addition, THINKStrategies awarded Samanage a Best of SaaS Showplace honor for the measurable business value delivered to its customers.About Samanage:Samanage is a leading provider of real cloud-based IT service desk and asset management software that helps companies deliver a superior service experience. Samanage firmly believes that enterprise software deserves cutting-edge UI, and is devoted to providing its customers with the most modern and intuitive IT management platform. The company is challenging companies like ServiceNow and BMC in the mid-market, and was recognized in 2013 for its SaaS and business achievements through a number of awards. Since 2007, Samanage has been committed to assisting IT departments in delivering fast, quality service while reducing their workloads. Capabilities include IT service desk, problem and change management, hardware and software tracking, a contract repository, inventory risk detection, and more. Visit: http://www.samanage.com.
ironSource has announced its mobileCore cross-promotion tools for app developers is now available. The centerpiece of the mobileCore platform is its Offer Wall, which provides non intrusive in-app promotional opportunities. The Offer Wall is one of several ad formats that mobileCore offers for monetization opportunities including interstitial ads and slider ads. mobileCore SDKs are Google-compliant and offer a range of modular developer tools to encourage engagement, distribution and monetization without disrupting the user experience or usage.Participating developers can use the mobileCore platform to evaluate future decision-making regarding cross promotion and app development. Developers have the options to share traffic but are not obligated to do so.
– SundaySky , the creator of SmartVideo, today announced it has raised $20 million in a Series C investment round led by Comcast Ventures . Liberty Global Ventures , Vintage Investment Partners , and existing investors, Carmel Ventures , Globespan Capital Partners and Norwest Venture Partners (NVP), also participated in the round. With this investment, SundaySky will accelerate growth and scale by expanding go-to-market capacity in existing and new geographies, and strengthening new product innovation to further its competitive advantage. Andrew Cleland, managing director of Comcast Ventures, will join SundaySky's board of directors, where he will lend his experience and expertise in consumer Internet solutions, including digital media and advertising technology. This new funding comes at a key moment in the company's growth; SundaySky doubled its staff in the last 12 months, tripled revenues in 2012, and expects that growth to continue in 2013. In the last 12 months, SmartVideo views have grown more than 200 percent to 140 million, spanning ecommerce, telecommunications, insurance, banking and travel industries – with more than half of those views attributed to SmartVideo Advertising programs."This milestone highlights SundaySky's success in establishing and leading the smart video category and a new paradigm for how businesses engage with their customers," said Shmulik Weller, CEO of SundaySky. "All of our investors share a commitment to our mission to capture the vast market opportunity for personalized video and innovate ahead of the competition."Leading customer-centric brands are adopting data-driven acquisition and engagement strategies by adding SmartVideo to their marketing portfolios to deliver more engaging and effective experiences to their customers. SundaySky SmartVideo is the only truly personalized, real-time and infinitely-scalable platform with sophisticated built-in analytics, allowing brands to measure and optimize performance at multiple touch-points. "Comcast Ventures is a believer in disruptive digital marketing innovation, particularly as CMOs boost technology investments and seek to develop more direct, personalized relationships with customers," said Andrew Cleland, managing director of Comcast Ventures. "SundaySky sits at the intersection of these trends, combining rich creative experiences with big data, and we'll support a world-class team building a clear category leader." Additional SundaySky resources: · SmartVideo solutions: www.sundaysky.com/solutions/· SmartVideo Index 2013: http://slidesha.re/1bA4jJY· SundaySky blog: http://info.sundaysky.com/blogAbout SundaySky SundaySky, the creator of SmartVideo, helps customer-centric brands engage people with personalized, real-time video experiences at every step of the customer lifecycle. The SundaySky platform generates hundreds of thousands of SmartVideos daily, powering customer acquisition, support, growth and loyalty initiatives for leaders in ecommerce, telecommunications, insurance, banking and travel. AT&T, Office Depot, Allstate and other SundaySky customers have proven that SmartVideo viewers are more engaged, profitable and loyal, as program performance is measurable and optimized for incremental impact on key business metrics. SundaySky is headquartered in New York City with offices in Tel Aviv and London. For more information, visit www.sundaysky.com.
RealMatch announced today that it has recently signed over 20 new affiliate partnership deals with leading digital publishers, job board operators, and broadcast media companies that will implement RealMatch's white-label recruitment advertising solution to generate new revenue, increase site traffic, and improve overall engagement among their subscriber base. The list includes well known digital publishers and media companies such as Ars Technica, Merion Matters, WRAL.com, HMP Communications, Norfolk Daily News and HR.com. RealMatch has also extended its footprint into Canada, with Jobs.ca and BCjobs.ca. "RealMatch invests in acquiring a strong audience for our local job listings by distributing them across its large network of employment sites," said WRAL.com General Manager John Conway. "With this partnership, we can help employers in North Carolina find the best possible candidates, making our product offering more attractive to the business community." As part of the RealMatch's partnership agreement, RealMatch affiliates become members of TheJobNetwork™, RealMatch's recruitment advertising network comprised of more than one thousand local, diversity and niche job sites, job aggregators, job search engines, and social networks. TheJobNetwork™ is powered by RealMatch's sophisticated ad optimization, ad targeting, and job matching technologies to increase ad performance and generate significantly higher qualified applicant response rates compared to traditional destination job sites. "Our business model has been built to deliver measurable performance, exceptional efficiency and a network reach never before seen by other traditional recruitment ad networks. With our true Real-Time Job Matching™ technology, our partners receive the best job performance in the industry – improving their site engagement, helping them grow audiences, and creating new and sustainable revenue," said Gal Almog, founder and CEO of RealMatch. About RealMatch RealMatch is revolutionizing the highly fragmented online recruitment industry by allowing online publishers to better monetize their communities using recruitment advertising, while offering employers and job seekers a much more efficient way to connect. Applying many of the same principles that made display and search advertising thrive, RealMatch has developed TheJobNetwork™, the largest recruitment ad network in North America comprised of more than 1,000 job sites powered by RealMatch on behalf of its publisher affiliates, along with thousands of third-party job sites. To learn more please visit www.realmatch.com. - See more at: http://globenewswire.com/news-release/2013/10/08/579010/10051766/en/RealMatch-Continues-Rapid-Growth-in-Recruitment-Advertising.html#sthash.kUw8yYlv.dpuf