Vringo
Location: Big Center, Beit Shemesh 1 Yigal Allon Blvd, Beit Shemesh, 99062, Israel Israel
Stage: Beta (public testing)
Number of employees: 31-50
Short URL: vator.co/vringo-0
Admins (1)
Followers (9)

Vringo

Startup/business
Israel Israel Israel
http://www.vringo.com
About
Video/documents
Company description

Vringo is the world's first video ringtone sharing community. The company is making Mobile 2.0 a reality by enabling users to experience rich media independent of their device-and for the first time to share that media with others within their community.

Vringo was launched in June 2006 by Israeli venture capitalist Jon Medved and mobile software guru David Goldfarb, making the sharing of mobile video a reality. Thirteen months and thirty-two people later, Vringo was launched in public beta, providing users with the ability to individualize and enrich their mobile experience-by sharing visual media as ringtones including video, the best movies, TV and music, still images, animation or their own UGC captured with their handset or from websites such as YouTube. Today Vringo works on a broad range of phones, including Nokia, Motorola, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Orange SPV and HTC, and works across Java, Symbian and Windows Mobile; Vringo has plans to support half of all phones shipping by the end of 2008.

Content Partners include Universal Music Group, Discovery Mobile, Turner, Saturday Night Live, Meez, WeeWorld, GoTv, ES Interactive and Underground Archive among others.

Today mobile phones are an extension of self, and Vringo embodies the vanguard of mobile content -- cross-platform personalization and community exchange. Vringo is the first video application device of its kind that integrates content sharing into a phone call experience.

  • This week, Vringo won the Special Recognition award in the Sony Ericsson Content Awards '07-the company's first-ever awards for development of outstanding content and applications for mobile phones. Vringo won for "Best Use of Phone Functionality."
  • In October, Vringo won MIPCOM's Mobile TV & Internet Award in Cannes for Best Mobile Service for Social Community and User-Generated Content. The company was selected out of 280 entries from 180 companies in 38 countries at the content summit.
  • CEO Jon Medved was recently interviewed on CNBC's "Power Lunch". See Innovations: Video Ringtones. http://search.cnbc.com/main.do?target=video&keywords=Innovations
  • Vringo was also in the Wall Street Journal, My Phone, My Self http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119265199498662338.html

 

Team

JONATHAN MEDVED

Chief Executive Officer

Jon is one of Israel's leading venture capitalists and a seasoned entrepreneur. Jon is a co-founder of Vringo and serves as the Chief Executive Officer.

He founded Israel Seed Partners in 1995 and co-managed the fund until January 2006. Israel Seed has $262M under management in four funds and has been an investor in 60 leading Israeli companies. Exits include: Shopping.com (acquired by eBay), Compugen (Nasdaq:CGEN), Answers.com (Nasdaq:ANSW), Cyota (acquired by RSA), Native Networks (acquired by Alcatel), Xacct (acquired by Amdocs), and Business Layers (acquired by CA).

Prior to Israel Seed, Jon built several technology startups. He was a founder and Executive Vice President of Marketing and Sales at MERET Optical Communications, Inc. (Santa Monica, CA) between 1982 and 1991. MERET was an early pioneer in fiber optic communication systems for video transmission which was acquired by the Amoco Corporation (NYSE:BP) in 1990. After moving to Israel he was part of the founding management team at Accent Software (Nasdaq:ACNTF) where he served as Executive Vice President of Marketing and Sales from 1992 through 1994.

In addition, Jon is well known in the Israel Venture Capital scene and lectures frequently in the United States. He also serves on the Boards of various non-profits including Israel21c, Ma'aleh, and the Jerusalem College of Technology.

 

DAVID GOLDFARB

Chief Technology Officer

As Chief Technology Officer and a co-founder of Vringo, David brings over 20 years of industry expertise in the development of cutting edge and innovative technology. David steers Vringo's technical direction, including industry partnerships and JCP committees, future technical directions, and IP management.

Previously, David founded Degel Software Ltd. a software development and consulting company, in 1988. He served as a consultant and coder extraordinaire for a variety of firms, offering software management, technical direction, and programming services.

From 2001 through 2006, Degel offered technical guidance and implementation of mobile application development at dozens of companies, ranging from AOL, Orange Group, and Sun all the way through pre-funding startups. David is proud that his clients and award-winning products have led the mobile industry for the past five years including near-continuous listings since 2002 on the Handango "top-10" lists.

In the early years of Degel, David specialized in artificial intelligence, network protocols, graphical user interfaces, image processing, and Internet information retrieval.

In 1996, he co-founded 2AM Development Ltd., and served as VP of Technology, heading its software development and design, patent coordination, and technical strategy practices.

David left academia and got his professional start in the early 1980s, at Symbolics, Inc., the foremost manufacturer of artificial intelligence (AI) workstations and holder of the world's first .COM address.

In 1980, David worked with a Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) group developing Internet TCP/IP protocols. David graduated from MIT in 1984.

 

DANIEL T. CIPORIN

Chairman of the Board

Dan is the chairman of the board of Vringo Inc. He is the former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Shopping.com Ltd., a publicly traded online comparison shopping service. He oversaw the company's growth from zero to over $100 million in revenues and nearly $20 million in adjusted net income in just 5 years, culminating in the company's initial public offering in October 2004.

Dan continued to serve as CEO of the company until June of 2005, at which time the company announced that it would be acquired by eBay (Public, NASDAQ:EBAY) for $620 million. During his tenure, Shopping.com became the leader and dominant player in the newly emerging sector of comparison shopping and was the third largest ecommerce site on the web at the time of the sale to eBay.

Dan earned his BA degree at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs from Princeton University in 1980 and his MBA degree at the Yale University School of Management in 1986. In September of 2005 he joined the board of directors of VistaPrint Ltd. (VPRT), a publicly traded internet printing company. He currently serves as a senior advisor and consultant to a variety of high growth private companies and boards.

See: http://www.vringo.com/corporate/management.html

 

Business model

 Vringo will generate revenues in 3 ways:

  • Content sales
  • Advertising
  • Subscriptions

 Additional revenue for carriers

  • Increased data usage
  • Increased call volumes
Competitive advantage

Vringo's Technology Breakthrough

While it seems easy, it is not

  • Automatically inserting content into a call is a major challenge

Multiple patent applications

  • Integrating media on call handling
  • Contact-book management thru application
  • Advertising distribution

Wide handset penetration

  • Established handset relationships with Sony Ericsson, Samsung, Nokia, Motorola, HTC, Orange SPV.
  • We've broken the Java barrier
  • Vringo works across Java, Windows Mobile, Symbian