Taykey Inc., whose technology identifies trends on social networks, has raised $9 million in its second financing round from Sequoia Capital, Japan's Softbank, and Singapore's Crescent Point. The company previously raised a few million dollars from Sequoia and angel investors.
The company will use the proceeds to hire engineers in Tel Aviv, and to expand its New York City-based sales team.
Taykey CEO Amit Avner, CTO Omer Dror, and Itay Birnbaum founded the company in 2008. The company's technology enables advertisers to quickly and efficiently find target audiences. "Globes" first unveiled the technology in December 2010. The technology can, in real time, spot the topics on social networks, such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumbir, and 150 other sites within seconds, and identify what the trendy subjects will be in the next few hours. This information helps them attract advertisers seeking to be in the places and topics of discussion.
Avner told "Globes", "In the US program X Factor, where we cooperate with Pepsi, we can identify within 20 seconds whether a particular song will be trendy in three hours."
Taykey's business model is based on revenue from advertisers on the cost-per-click (CPC) and cost-per-thousand impressions (CPM).
Avner said, "We currently have 19 employees, 15 at our development center in Herzliya and four at our sales center in New York. We will use the proceeds from the financing round to hire ten more employees in Israel and a similar number in the US."
Avner said that Taykey does not operate in the Israeli market because it is too small. "We make campaigns of hundreds of thousands of dollars, and there are no brands in Israel that spend so much money on a campaign," he said, adding that the company's campaigns boost sales hundreds of percent by the company's partners.
Taykey also launched its service today. "We're building a billion-dollar company, not a $100 million dollar company," says Avner, "There's talk of an exit, but only if we get the right offer."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on June 9, 2011
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