Microsoft names PLYmedia as Israel’s Most Promising Internet Startup of 2008

– Wins 1st Prize in Competition sponsored by Microsoft Innovation Labs, Vertex Venture Capital and organized by TheMarker, Israel’s Financial Magazine —

With an enhanced faked orgasm from “Harry met Sally”, PLYmedia managed to capture the audience at the leading annual event of the internet industry. With layered enrichment, PLYmedia brings new life to this well-known and unforgettable scene.

This past Sunday, PLYmedia won first place in a competition held by Microsoft Innovation Lab together with Vertex VC and TheMarker financial magazine. The judge’s panel included industry leaders: Robert Scoble, the founder of the “Scobelizer” blog; Gary Sheinberg, VP Technology & Innovation of British Telecom; David Siebel, Vice Chairman of Wunderman (Y&R International’s direct marketing company); Ehud Levy, Managing Partner of Vertex Venture Capital; and executives of Microsoft. The selection criteria were based on a company’s innovation, new business models and “go to market” strategy.

PLYmedia brings a new video viewing experience by enabling any video to become fully interactive and personalized. All applications are based on “state of the art” contextual understanding of the video and deep dynamic tagging and enrichment.

With dozens of customers around the world and reaching over 700 million potential views per month, the company has launched a wide range of applications via its open platform. Any video site can now enjoy enriched viewer experience and new revenue models for its video assets.

About PLYmedia

PLYmedia, a privately-held company, was founded in 2006 and has offices in Palo Alto, Tel Aviv and Berlin. Investors include Bill Harris (former CEO of PayPal), Gordon Radley (former President of LucasFilm), Gil Elbaz (co-founder of Applied Semantics, which was sold to Google) and others. The Company’s founders and managers include Ben Enosh, the Company’s CEO and a former co-founder of Cyota; Yuval Klein; David Markowitz; Yoni Silberberg and Dr. Nimrod Kozlovski.

The company is seeking additional VC investors to join Elron Electronic Industries (NASDAQ:ELRN), the high tech arm of the IDB Group, in its current “A” round financing.

Contacts

PLYmedia
Yoni Silberberg, 650-353-0964
yoni {at} plymedia(.)com
www.plymedia.com