The virtual television network start-up RayV Ltd. has raised $8 million in its second financing round as the money is coming from Accel Partners.
RayV describes its business as follows: “Why is everybody so hell-bent on replacing TV? We here at RayV, like TV. The only thing is, we want more of it.
Sure, we love the big networks – after all, they show us all the live Paris Hilton we can handle – and lots of other stuff too. We just want it at high quality on our TVs and on our PCs, anywhere in the world… and more…
We also want to watch live news channels from smaller, independent sources with correspondents around the world. We want channels of live performances from the newest bands at the University of Calcutta. And live coverage of rugby matches from England. And short-film channels from NYU Film School students. And coverage of local politics. And cooking channels for Vegans. And cooking channels for Carnivors. And…
Well, you get the point: TV – real, live, 24-hour TV channels – at TV quality. For the PC, for the TV. For anyone to watch… and for anyone to broadcast. At no cost. We like TV. In the next months, we’re going to give everyone the power to make more of it. Much more!â€
Sounds like Joost.. or no. Too early to say whatever, still nothing is publicly available so only time will tell.
Other online sources are describing the company that it has plans to offer a new way for “consumers to find, review, and talk about local businesses. A cross between a web-based social community and an online business directory, RAYV is where people go to express their opinions on any type of local business and get recommendations from a trusted source – their peers.” And yet another description: RayV is developing “proprietary internet protocols forming a generic grid network, enabling anyone to broadcast LIVE TV to an unlimited amount of concurrent viewers at zero cost.”
Which is which? If the second one is anywhere close the truth it sounds intriguing from technological perspective, which anyone of the leading video sites on Web might be quite interested in.
Founded 20 months ago by Omer Luzzatti, Ron Zuckerman, and Oleg Levy, the company has been operating in stealth mode. Levy was previously an executive at Kagoor, which was acquired by Juniper Networks Inc. (Nasdaq:JNPR) in 2005, and then served at Juniper’s Israeli R&D center. Zuckerman has been a well-known entrepreneur for the past 15 years. He has been an angel investor in several start-ups, including Wintegra Inc., Aeronautics Defense Systems Ltd., Koolanoo Group Ltd., Attunity (Nasdaq: ATTU), Can-Fite BioPharma Ltd. (TASE:CFBI), and e-Glue Business Technologies Ltd.
The company is based in both locations Tel Aviv, Israel and New York, US.
Accel Partners was founded 24 years ago and manages $4 billion. It is one of the most active venture capital funds in 
Israel, and has offices in California, Europe, and China. Accel Europe manages $1 billion in two funds, both of which make investments in Israel.
Other video and TV related ventures Aceel has put money in are Brightcove and Metacafe.
Israel on the other hand seems to be pretty strong in the Internet TV arena, with some leading companies like BlogTV, Metacafe, and 5min.
No publicly available information was found about their first round of funding and who their other investors are.
More
http://www.rayv.com/
http://www.accel.com/
http://www.globes.co.il/serveen/globes/docview.asp?did=1000261513&fid=942
http://archive.globes.co.il/ENGLISH/index.asp?ID=1000261513
http://www.thealarmclock.com/mt/archives/2007/10/israeli_virtual.html
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/virtual-tv-co-rayv-raises/story.aspx?guid=%7BC1A7A1B5-0344-4585-94E0-D20D1B1C5116%7D
http://israelplug.com/business/israeli-tv-startup-rayv-raises-8m/
