Facebook Expands Credits Offers to Europe Via SupersonicAds – a huge deal for the Israeli startup, perhaps thanks to its UK office? AT&T set up new R&D and incubation center in Israel in collaboration with Amdocs – welcome AT&T Foundry. More headlines on this VC Cafe Bitesize Friday
Green Road raises $13 million from existing investors and appoints Jim Heeger, a silicon valley veteran as the new CEO.
AcceloWeb, an Israeli startup formerly known as Fasterweb, has been acquired by Limelight Networks (Nasdaq:LLNW) for undisclosed terms. Acceloweb develops technology that helps increase the load time of websites, a need that has been growing as applications migrate to the cloud. Following the deal Acceloweb will become Limelight’s development center in Israel.
In 2008, we covered the story of EyeView on VC Cafe. Three friends won the Harvard Business School business plan competition, carried on with the venture to raise money from respectable VCs in Israel and land clients like Yahoo and eBay. But since then, very little was heard about the company until now. Beet.tv reported that Innovation Endeavors, the VC fund led by Google’s chairman Eric Schmidt, has invested an additional $1 million in Eyeview, bringing the total investment in the company to $6 million to date from Gemini and Lightspeed ventures.
The Gifts Project is a social ecommerce platform enabling group gifting. Its CEO, Ron Gura, was a mentor at Seedcamp Tel Aviv 2011, an early-stage micro seed investment and mentoring programme. Startup Intelligence recently interviewed him for VC Cafe.
Wix, the Israel-based flash website platform, has announced a D round of $40 million. The new investors in the round are Insight Venture Partners and DAG ventures who joined previous investors Benchmark Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners and Mangrove Capital Partners that also participated in the round.
Facebook surprised with its first acquisition in Israel today, with the announcement that it is buying Israeli startup Snaptu (previously known as Moblica) for an estimated $60-70 million. Founded in 2007 by Ron Makavy, Micha Berdichevsky, and Barak Naveh, Snaptu raised a total of $9 million in three rounds
Wibbitz provides web developers with a plug-in which automatically transforms static web content into an interactive video. The company was one of the five winners at Seedcamp Tel Aviv 2011, an early-stage micro seed investment and mentoring programme. Startup Intelligence caught up with co-founders Zohar Dayan (CEO) and Yotam Cohen (VP Business Development) to find out more.
Viola Private Equity, an Israeli PE fund with $164 million under management for technology buyouts, has announced a $7 million investment in Zend, the leading provider of open-source and commercial solutions based on PHP web applications.
Jinni, an Israeli startup offering a taste-and-mood based guide for movies and TV shows, announced yesterday the closing of its $5 million series B funding. The round was led by Belgacom and an undisclosed connected-TV manufacturer. Previous backer DFJ Tamir Fishman Ventures (led the previous $1.6 million round a year ago) also participated.
