SundaySky wants to turn web content into instant video
Israeli video production company SundaySky wants to help web sites repackage their content as video — whether as a means to promote sales, build out their communities, or communicate better with their audience. SundaySky says that turning site content into videos can be time consuming and expensive for web sites, and that its service is not only a cost effective alternative but also allows for automatic and real time updates to videos. That is to… Continue Reading
SnapMyLife captures $5M for mobile photo sharing
SnapMyLife, a web site for sharing photos over cellular phones worldwide, reeled in $5 million in financing to roll out new product features and stretch its global reach. Owned by mobile content distributor Mobicious, the Needham, Mass. company hopes to capitalize on the popularity of photos on social-networking sites to bring in revenue from relevant ads.
The application’s users can not only make friends and share their photos (taken on their phone or by a digital… Continue Reading
Online image licensing company PicApp raises $3.2M
Picapp is an Israel-based company that offers licensed images to web publishers in exchange for Picapp running advertising on publishers’ sites. The company has raised $3.2 million from Carmel Ventures and angel investor Leon Recanati.
Payoneer raises $8M for easy MasterCard payments
Payoneer, which provides prepaid MasterCards to help businesses with international payments, has raised $8 million in a second round of venture funding. The round was led by Carmel Ventures, with Greylock Partners, Crossbar Capital, Zohar Gilon and others participating.
The New York based startup says its solution — reloadable MasterCards — make it easier for businesses to make mass payments in other countries. Customers include iStockPhoto, oDesk and Elance. Payoneer raised $4 million last year.
Delver opens social-powered search to the public
There are more than a few ideas floating around for how to challenge Google’s dominance in search, from natural language to community editing — enough that you might be forgiven for losing track of which ideas seem most important. But by Google’s own standards, social search engine Delver should be pretty high on the list of companies to watch.
Delver, which is launching to the public today, is counting on your friends to tell it which… Continue Reading
Video transmission technology company LiveU raises $9M
LiveU builds video transmission technology that transmits live videos over wireless networks including 3G, Wi-Fi and WiMAX to the internet and television.
The Fair Lawn, New Jersey company has raised $9 million from Canaan Partners and Carmel Ventures.
Motorola invests in DesignArt Networks, a WiMax network chip maker
Motorola’s venture capital arm, Motorola Ventures, has invested an undisclosed amount of money into DesignArt Networks, an Isreali company that says it is making chips for WiMax networks that are higher-grade than competitors.
WiMax is widely considered as a promising technology because it provides broadband for wireless communications over large distances, and carriers are rolling out the technology. Chips are needed to make those networks accessible by phones and other devices.
DesignArt says it supplies silicon system-on-chip… Continue Reading
Israeli VC firm Carmel Ventures raises $235M for third fund
Carmel Ventures, an Isreali venture capital firm, said it has established its third fund, Carmel Ventures III, with commitments of $235 million.
Carmel Ventures III General Partners are: Shlomo Dovrat, Avi Zeevi, Rina Shainski and Ori Bendori.
Carmel Ventures III will follow the Carmel Ventures investment strategy of focusing on seed and early stage Information Technology investments. Carmel ventures will continue to invest in and support potential category leaders in various fields of the global Information Technology… Continue Reading
eXelate takes $4M for twist on targeted advertising
eXelate is an exchange for publishers to swap ads based on subject areas. If a users visits a publisher’s site that’s related to another site they previously visited, ads relevant to the first site are shown.
For example, if you visited Toyota’s site then surfed over to an automotive forum, you might see an ad for the latest Prius.
Unlike other targeted advertising startups, eXelate doesn’t plan on tracking or storing any information about the users on… Continue Reading
Imagine raises $15M more, for yet another video streaming technology
Imagine Communications, a company boasting powerful new streaming technology for home broadband providers, has raised a $15 million second round of financing.
The San Diego, Calif. company has R&D in Israel. The round was led by Court Square Ventures, and included previous backers Columbia Capital and Carmel Ventures.
The firm was founded by Ron Gutman and Doron Segev, previously at BigBand Networks, a company that has sued Imagine for patent infringement.
From the company’s statement:
The new financing will… Continue Reading
Kontera raises $10.3M more for “in-text” ad technology
Kontera, a San Francisco company that helps online publishers scans for key words in articles on their sites and then matches them real-time with relevant “in-text” ads, has raised $10.3 million in a second round of funding.
Investors are Israeli venture firm Carmel Ventures and existing backers Lehman Brothers and Sequoia Capital.
From the company’s statement:
ContentLink, Kontera’s flagship product, is an In-Text ad unit based on a patent pending real-time contextual analysis technology that finds relevant… Continue Reading
Oversi, P2P content delivery co., raises $8M from Cisco, others
Oversi, an Israeli peer-to-peer (P2P) caching and content delivery company, said it has received funding from Cisco as part of an extended second round of funding, totaling $8 million.
The round was led by Carmel Ventures together with StageOne Ventures and TempoPark Fund, the company said.
Here’s the announcement.