Participated · Equity · Dec 2015

Innovid provides a technology platform for creating, delivering and measuring addressable and interactive video ads across mobile, desktop, connected TVs, streaming devices and social platforms. The company serves large global brands including L’Oreal, Toyota, Bank of America, GlaxoSmithKline and Campbell’s. Innovid reaches more than 75 million households and integrates with a broad footprint of connected and streaming devices, including Roku, Amazon Fire, Apple TV and Samsung TV. In partnership with publishers, it has led creation of consumer choice‑based engagement ads and live Internet TV campaigns. The company recently launched OTT COMPOSER, a self‑service authoring tool to create and publish connected TV ad experiences. It has offices in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, London, Tel Aviv, Sydney and Singapore and plans to use new funding to advance its end‑to‑end CTV platform and expand its global presence. Innovid offers a software-as-a-service platform for creating, targeting and measuring video advertising across connected TV, desktop, mobile and gaming consoles. The company emphasizes "media neutrality," foregoing ad-buying to focus solely on technology and avoid viewability and fraud conflicts. It works with more than 220 advertisers, including Best Buy, Procter & Gamble and Walmart, and has more than 200 employees across eight global offices. Innovid has expanded support for Internet-connected TVs and recently rolled out interactive video ads with Roku. Financially, the company announced a $27.5M funding round that combines equity with $12.5M in debt. Innovid says it will use the new funding to expand across-the-board. Innovid provides technology that lets advertisers create, target, and measure video ad campaigns across TV and digital platforms. The company develops interactive ad formats and has integrations with devices such as Roku's Internet TV. Innovid has partnered with Cisco on technology to pull keywords from TV shows so cable companies can target ads to smartphone and tablet apps. CEO Zvika Netter emphasizes a focus on technology rather than owning media, describing the company as media-agnostic. Netter pointed to the broader convergence of television and digital video (and factors like Google Fiber and an expected Apple web TV service) as drivers for the business. Innovid has raised $10M in new funding, bringing its total raised to $37.6M. Innovid builds technology to create and deliver interactive video ads across a wide range of devices and screens. The company enables brands and agencies to build immersive, addressable ad experiences and is working to make those ads available on connected TVs, game consoles, tablets, and other devices. Innovid has partnered with Flingo to run interactive elements alongside traditional TV spots, enabling features like cast and crew info, coupon redemption, or purchases from the TV. Its platform has served ads for customers including Toyota, Nissan, Chrysler, Sony Pictures, Paramount, GSK, eBay, T-Mobile, EA, and Best Buy. The business has seen rapid top-line growth, with revenue up 450% year-over-year. To accelerate making its technology available on as many devices as possible, Innovid raised additional funding to expand its cross-platform capabilities. Innovid develops interactive pre-roll advertising (iRoll) and a Dynamo ad server and analytics platform that serve brands and publishers. iRoll converts existing pre-roll ads into interactive units that encourage clicks and mouse gestures, while Dynamo provides video serving and deeper analytics. The company reports iRoll CTRs of 5 percent and says it is growing 100 percent each quarter. Its platform is integrated across hundreds of video publishers and every major video ad network, with publisher partnerships including NBC, MTV, Fox, and Tremor Media. Brand clients include Kraft, Buick, Hyundai, Disney Pictures, and Sony. The company plans to use new funds for product development and international expansion, including opening a London office later this year.

Participated · Series B · Sep 2015

Moviepilot operates a fan-focused publishing platform that blends user-generated fan content with editorial curation across its website and social media. The company gives fans front-line access, allowing contributors to cover premieres and interview stars while Moviepilot controls distribution. It reaches 25 million monthly unique visitors and sees more than 40 million monthly video views on Facebook, with over 75% of readers and viewers aged 35 or younger. Moviepilot started in Germany and launched in the U.S. three years ago. Last year it sold its German business to Webedia for $20 million. The company is exploring revenue-sharing for contributors and plans to ramp up social-media-focused video production and expand into gaming, either via a separate site or by incorporating gaming content. MoviePilot is a platform launched out of Berlin that focuses on promoting upcoming movies and TV shows to audiences matched by taste, aiming to capture attention before theatrical and home-release windows. The company provides social marketing services and has run campaigns for major studios including Twentieth Century Fox, Universal, Disney and Paramount, working on titles such as Chronicle. MoviePilot operates moviepilot.com and Moviepilot.de, which together have a Facebook fanbase of 5.4 million. The team was founded by Tobias Bauckhage, Jon Handschin (CPO) and Benjamin Krause (CTO). The business has previously received investment from Grazia Equity, Passion Capital’s Stefan Glanzer, Deutsche Telekom Ventures and Peter Read. It plans to use new funding to expand in the U.S. and further develop its platform.

Participated · Series B · Nov 2014

CipherCloud offers a cloud visibility and data protection platform that provides comprehensive cloud application discovery and risk assessment, searchable encryption, tokenization, data loss prevention, key management and malware detection. The platform also delivers user activity and anomaly monitoring and is used across industries including financial services, healthcare, telecommunications and government agencies. Its product portfolio protects cloud applications such as Salesforce, Box, Microsoft Office 365 and ServiceNow. Led by founder and CEO Pravin Kothari, CipherCloud will use the financing to further accelerate go-to-market activities and support international growth in Europe and Asia Pacific. The company also plans to advance product innovation efforts to expand and enhance its protection capabilities. CipherCloud, founded in 2011, sells cloud application security that encrypts data before it leaves the enterprise and passes communications through a gateway that tokenizes data while caching real data on‑premise. Its tokens are structurally similar to actual data but have no mathematical correlation, preserving operations such as searching, sorting and reporting within cloud apps. The company partners with cloud services including Salesforce.com, Microsoft Cloud, Amazon Web Services, Box, and Google. CipherCloud reports more than 1.2 million users and 40 customers, including two of the world’s top banks. It positions its single‑key, enterprise‑wide encryption as differentiated from competitors like Symantec and McAfee, which secure at the browser level. Management cites growing concerns about data vulnerability, subpoenas, and compliance as drivers of demand. Market context cited Gartner projections that 25% of enterprises will use a cloud security app by 2016 and that the market could reach $206.6 billion. CipherCloud provides cloud data protection, monitoring and regulatory compliance solutions for enterprises. The company offers connectors for cloud services such as Salesforce, Force.com, Amazon Web Services and Box.net to help customers retain control over sensitive data. It announced CipherCloud Version 2, which adds connectors, an Open API for developers and ISVs, and cloud malware detection to block infected file uploads. The Open API enables developers and ISVs to build custom connectors that leverage CipherCloud's data protection technology with public or private cloud applications. CipherCloud has also pursued international expansion through a partnership with SunBridge Corporation to grow its presence in Japan alongside partners like Cloudware Connections, Intellect Solutions, Lava Protocols and Amazon Web Services Connector. The company raised an undisclosed venture funding round, providing outside investor support for product development and market expansion.

Participated · Series A · Oct 2014

ZenMate is an internet security solution provider led by founder and CEO Simon Specka. The company offers a free, device-agnostic platform that encrypts browser traffic, hides users' real locations, unblocks geo-restrictions, and provides WiFi/hacker security to protect user privacy. Its products are available on Google Chrome, Firefox, Opera, iOS and Android, with other products planned for the future. ZenMate says it is used by several million users across 180 countries. The company aims to develop new products and expand global adoption of its offering. ZenMate offers a VPN-style private browsing suite that encrypts web traffic and routes it through its network of servers to hide users' IP addresses and locations. The product is available as desktop extensions for Chrome, Opera and Firefox and as mobile apps for iOS and Android. The desktop version is free with unlimited browsing; mobile uses a freemium model (500 MB cap for free users) and a paid subscription that adds unlimited browsing, data compression and harmful-site blocking. Launched 18 months prior to the article, ZenMate had grown to 5 million users (up from 1 million after six months) and counts the U.S., UK and Germany as key markets. The company faces consumer VPN competitors including Privax (Hide My Ass), AnchorFree (Hotspot Shield), TunnelBear and CyberGhost. Investors Shortcut Ventures and T-Venture are noted as potentially providing inroads into the mobile space via connections to German telcos E-Plus and Deutsche Telekom. ZenGuard, founded in 2013 by Simon Specka and Markus Hanel, builds the ZenMate browser plug-in which encrypts outgoing and incoming traffic to protect user privacy. The company is based in Berlin, Germany. Its core product is a privacy-focused browser extension that secures users' internet connections. ZenGuard plans to use newly raised funds for technical development, creation of new products and hiring additional staff. The startup has previously received support from the Axel Springer Plug & Play Accelerators. Recent investors include Project A Ventures and several angel backers.

Participated · Series B · Jun 2014

Flaregames develops and publishes free-to-play mobile games and has built a major franchise with the Royal Revolt series. Led by founder and CEO Klaas Kersting, the company released BraveSmart in May 2012 and launched Royal Revolt II in February 2014. Royal Revolt II accumulated 1.5 million downloads on iOS and Android within its first ten days. The company intends to use the new funding to scale the business, hire additional senior personnel, and market its games. Financially, Flaregames raised €9M in this Series B round and has now raised €17M in total. Operations are based in Karlsruhe, Germany. Flaregames develops and operates free-to-play mobile games for the iOS and Android platforms. Founded in 2011 by CEO Klaas Kersting and based in Karlsruhe, Germany, the company offers free games with optional in-app purchases for additional services and content. The first games were scheduled for release in April in five languages, with eight games planned for release in 2012. The company raised €2m in funding from T-Venture; this financing follows a €6m round from Accel Partners in February. Kersting said the company was comfortably financed after the earlier round but viewed T-Venture’s approach as a unique strategic opportunity. The investment accompanies a broad marketing cooperation with Deutsche Telekom to promote the games and provide access to the carrier’s customer base. flaregames develops free-to-play mobile games and maintains a production pipeline aimed at mainstream and mid-core gamers. The company was founded in 2011 and is based in Karlsruhe, Germany. Its upcoming line-up will consist of five games by the end of the second quarter of 2012. flaregames plans to use new capital to scale the business, hire additional staff, and market its upcoming titles. The company currently employs 30 people. The team describes its pipeline as consisting of several high-quality games targeted at a broad mobile audience.