Le Web, a tech conference in Paris organized by Loic Le Meur of Seesmic, attracted some of Europe’s most promising startups. Each year, LeWeb hosts a startup competition that consists of short presentations in front of a panel of judges. From 130 applicants, 33 contestants were selected to participate in this year’s Le Web 3 competition. The startups were graded on seven categories and three winners were selected.
Amongst the winners, two Israeli companies brought the trophy:
2nd place: PLYmedia – a pioneer in the development and deployment of an interactive, multi-dimensional web video platform. Plymedia’s leading product is PLYplatform – a suite of applications that gives broadcast and video publishers and their viewers an opportunity to create professional or user-generated interactive content layers such as: Contextual ad insertion, Speech-to-Text recognition, Audio fingerprinting and matching and more. These applications make standard web videos more interactive, multi-dimensional and personalized. In Israel, the platform has been installed in large portals like Felix and Ma’ariv’s NRG.
Below are a few examples of PLYmedia’s technology:
BubblePLY-With BubblePLY, pop-up bubbles, text, images, clipart and subtitles can be easily added to any video
- InfoPLY– transparent smart bubbles are displayed on the video upon mouse-over of the defined item by a user
- AdPLY -the ability to insert and manage relevant text or banner ads onto any web video, resulting in increased ROI and advertising revenues.
SubPLY– allows web video publishers, broadcasters and other users to add subtitles and captions in any language to any type of web video
On the 3rd place: G.ho.st, a little company with a big challenge. I covered G.ho.st on Vc Cafe earlier this year. For details, check out my post: “Taking on BIG Challenges – G.ho.st Aims High“
First place was awarded to Goojet. Congratulations to all the winners.
I'm a former general partner at google ventures, head of Google for Entrepreneurs in Europe and founding head of Campus London, Google's first physical hub for startups.
I'm also the founder of Techbikers, a non-profit bringing together the startup ecosystem on cycling challenges in support of Room to Read. Since inception in 2012 we've built 11 schools and 50 libraries in the developing world.
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