Ybrant Media, an large Indian Media portfolio of companies, has acquired Israeli startup PicApp for an undisclosed amount. This is Ybrant Media’s second acquisition in Israel. The company has previously bought Advertising startup Oridian in 2007 (see coverage on VC Cafe).
In its inception, PicApp enabled bloggers and publishers to legally embed high quality images by pasting simple code, showing ads on the images. That model didn’t prove itself and PicApp pivoted, by creating a widget that shows related images for publishers. Founded in 2007 by Eyal Gura (CEO), PicApp was a spin-off Picscout, leading provider of tracking technology for copyrighted images online.
Investors in PicApp included Carmel Ventures as well as angel investors Yair Goldfinger and Lenny Recanati. According to Crunchbase, PicApp raised $3.2 million in September of 2008. On a personal note, this marks the second exit for the Zell Entrepreneurship program. The Zell program is a highly selective ‘academic incubator’ offered at IDC Herzliya (disclosure: I’m an alumnus of the program), in which students get support to launch ventures in their last year of studies. The other exit is attributed to the rumored acquisition of Wibiya, also started by Zell alumni Dror Ceder and Daniel Tal, by Conduit for $45-60 million.
Following the acquisition, Picapp’s employees will join YBrant Media. As for Eyal’s next steps, he is an early investor in The Gifts Project, a startup run by his brother and a Chairman of the board at Picscout. Congrats and good luck!
Read Eyal Gura’s annoucement on the PicApp blog:
…PicApp will enjoy additional resources under Ybrant umbrella to further develop the product and add more value to many publishers. If you are a PicApp publisher you will be hearing from us soon, and should expect great things to happen on the product and monetization options we will present.
He is a former General Partner at Google Ventures (GV) in Europe, former head of Google for Entrepreneurs in Europe, and founding head of Campus London, Google's first startup hub. Eze writes on Israeli tech, venture capital, artificial intelligence, and founder strategy.
He is also the founder of Techbikers, a nonprofit that brings together the startup ecosystem on cycling challenges in support of Room to Read.
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