Online content engagement and social distribution platform developer Playbuzz has raised $16 million in Series B financing. The round was led by venture capital fund 83North (formerly Greylock IL), together with Saban Capital and previous investors Carmel Ventures and FirstTime Ventures. The new investment will be used to expand the company’s global operations, enrich the variety of formats available on the platform and empower online publishers with extended authoring, distribution and monetization capabilities. In addition to its New York headquarters, PlayBuzz is opening offices in Asia and Europe. The company also maintain its original office in Tel Aviv.
Founded in 2012 by Shaul Olmert and Tom Pachys, Playbuzz enables publishers, bloggers, marketers and brands to connect with audiences in a meaningful and share-worthy way, through interactive storytelling in easily digestible formats such as quizzes, lists, surveys, ranking and more. Within one year of its launch, the Playbuzz platform has attracted a rapidly growing community of thousands of publishers and content creators who author, embed and distribute compelling, fun content optimized for user engagement and social sharing.
Playbuzz is seeing over 80 million monthly unique visitors and has been ranked the #1 most shared publisher on Facebook for four consecutive months according to NewsWhip.
Playbuzz founder and CEO Shaul Olmert said, “The immense popularity of social media has disrupted the digital publishing industry. Playbuzz’s free platform enables content owners to rely on its proven, ready-made content formats, and deliver content items that are ideal for their target audience, for cross platform adaptability and for social sharing."
83North partner Arnon Dinur who has joined Playbuzz's board said, "Playbuzz’s dramatic growth and fast adoption points to the market’s thirst for a scalable platform to create viral audience engagement. We are thrilled to invest in this category leader, whose meteoric rise in popularity has made it the destination of choice for publishers seeking to engage today’s always-connected, always-evolving digital audiences."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on March 18, 2015
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2015