Israel's Vexigo partners with Yahoo!
Technology developed by Israeli startup can analyze millions of Web pages a day, enabling Internet giant to offer targeted advertising
The company was founded just three years ago and has been profitable ever since.
Vexigo raised its seed capital from former Alvarion CEO Tzvika Friedman and businessman David Shushan. The company developed a technology that changes the rules of the online advertising game, claims the company.
The company appears to be following in the footsteps if its Israeli counterparts, Kontera, Peer 39 and Double Verify, which made their way to the top of the semantic online advertising field matching page content to advertisements and user preferences.
However, it seems that Vexigo knows how to take the best features from each product and consolidate them into one product which gives advertisers and advertising agencies added value.
Internet giant Yahoo! recently tapped Vexigo's advertising platform for its advertising services. The strategic partnership with Yahoo! will place Vexigo's technology front and center of Yahoo's advertising server network.
Vexigo will analyze billions of Web pages a day, enabling Yahoo! to offer pre-targeted ad space at a higher degree of transparency both for advertisers and website operators.
The company was founded by Amit Reshef and Koby Ram, and since 2009 both have been running Vexigo which targets surfers according to content of current page, recently visited pages and geographical location.
In order to accommodate Yahoo's requirements, Ram recruited another 15 employees and signed an agreement with Amazon for dozens of mega-watt in server space.
'Yahoo! on a growth curve with new CEO'
Vexigo also prevents potentially mismatching or even inappropriate display of ads. Aside from targeted advertising it offers specific deals.
"I won’t just offer you an ad for sports gear. I'll offer you a 40% discount at the sports store around the corner," said CEO Ram in an interview to Calcalist. "We 'grouponize' the Web – we take all the deals and run them through our engines and then send them off in real time to mobile phones.
"Groupon is an incredible company and there are thousands of like it which Vexigo brings together in order to offer surfers a geographically targeted deals according to their fields of interest.
Ram is unfazed by the fact that Yahoo! has known better times. According to eMarketer, Yahoo's market share dropped from 13.3% to 11% in 2010, while Facebook and Google increased their online advertising market share.
"Yahoo! is on a growth curve with the new CEO which was bought in for the purpose of a future sale, among others. It’s a company that has been through a lot and is still very prominent."
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