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eBay acquires social ecommerce platform for Group Gifting
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Gift Project exit benefits youth initiatives

Tmura, Israel's first public service venture capital fund, to receive more than $65,000 from eBay’s acquisition of Israeli startup

Tmura – the Israeli Public Service Venture Fund – has announced the receipt of more than $65,000 as a result of eBay’s acquisition of The Gifts Project.

 

This brings the total funds generated for charity by Tmura to over $5,300,000, including over $3,500,000 from exits and an additional $1,800,000 from matching grant programs.

 

Late last week, eBay announced its acquisition of The Gifts Project, a social ecommerce platform for Group Gifting that helps online retailers, marketplaces and gift stores leverage their shopper’s social buying experience.

 

The company was seed funded by Yossi Vardi and Eyal Gura, and later received funding from Gemini Israel Fund and Index Ventures. The exit enabled Tmura to exercise its options in the company, and per Tmura’s model, the proceeds will be contributed to youth and education initiatives in Israel.

 

“Social responsibility is one of the values upon which we founded The Gifts Project, and Tmura has developed a fantastic, and unique yet simple, avenue for early stage companies to act on these values,” said Ron Gura, The Gifts Project co-founder and CEO.

 

The Gifts Project was introduced to Tmura by Eyal Gura, former Founder and CEO of PicScout and PicApp. Based on previous experience, Eyal realized that value to Tmura can be maximized if options are granted at a very early stage, so Gifts Project made a point of allocating equity to Tmura shortly after the founding of the company.

 

Eyal recently joined Tmura’s advisory board and is now helping to spread this message to the community of early-stage startups.

 

Tmura offers companies a unique way to contribute. Rather than soliciting cash donations, Tmura receives grants of stock from companies and uses the proceeds from successful "exits" – a public offering or acquisition – to fund education- and youth-related charities in Israel.

 

“With the increase in the number of startups that are either boot-strapped or angel-backed, Tmura has stepped up its efforts to introduce entrepreneurs to Tmura early in the life cycle of their companies,” explained Baruch Lipner, Tmura’s executive director.

 

These efforts continue to show signs of success as Tmura recently received equity donations from several more early stage companies, including BillGuard, Rounds, SolarPower, HighCon, Leukotech, StepWells and AgroPeace.

 

In addition, Tmura continues to target VC-backed companies and recently received equity donations from Emefcy, Infinite Memory, Waze, Totango, Oliver Solutions, Compass-EOS, MySupermarket, MultiPhy, and WeFi, bringing the total number of companies who have donated options to the community through Tmura, to 217.

 

 


פרסום ראשון: 09.18.11, 08:47
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