Israeli start-up Pursway Inc. (formerly Datanetis) has raised $6 million in its first financing round. The company is already five years old, and has customers for its solution which include Orange and Vodafone Group plc (LSE; Nasdaq: VOD). Battery Ventures led the round.
Pursway CEO Elery Pfeffer, CTO Guy Gildor, and EVP customer solutions Ran Shaul founded the company in 2005. Pfeffer told "Globes" today, "Pursway was founded in order to bridge the gap between how people make purchasing decisions and how large enterprises market."
Pfeffer added, "People make decisions on the basis of recommendations from friends, whereas enterprises market via broadcasting and a focus on target markets. Our technology can identify the opinion leaders within an enterprise's target audience who influence the buying decisions of the others.
"In fact, we analyze the information that an enterprise has about its customers, and we identify who is in that social environment, and who copies whose actions. In this way, an enterprise can initiate a campaign based on this information, and focus its efforts on the opinion-makers."
Pursway has scores of employees. The company will use proceeds from the financing round to expand its business in Europe and North America, and hire more staff, especially algorithm and JAVA developers.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on February 9, 2010
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2010