Start-up company PlayBuzz has completed a $3 million first fund raising round led by Carmel Ventures of the Viola Group. Carmel Ventures general partner Daniel Cohen has joined the PlayBuzz board of directors.
PlayBuzz is a playful content platform that enables users to create quizzes, surveys, lists and other similar content that can be embedded on websites and mobile apps. According to the company, just six months after its launch it serves over 40 million unique users monthly and is ranked by Quantcast among the 50 leading sites in the US for traffic. PlayBuzz was founded in 2012 by Shaul Olmert, its CEO, Yaron Buznach and Tom Pachys. It is based in Tel Aviv and employs 14 people. At the seed stage, the company raised $200,000 from Ilan Shiloach and Nir Tarlovski's TheTime.
Although Olmert describes the service as "innovative", those behind the popular BuzzFeed site claimed three months ago that it was copied from there. From a general perusal of the two sites it can be said that their designs are certainly similar, and that both draw on the same kind of content.
According to the IVC database, this is another attempt by Olmert to succeed with a start up after two companies he founded in the past closed down: GameGround, which ceased activity in early 2012 after raising $11 million, from the Sequoia fund, among other sources; and Netalign, which closed in 2010.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on June 16, 2014
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