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Web 2.0 - Thursday, May 31, 2007

Dating Back To 1996, Gizmoz Raises $6.3M

Talk about your visionaries, we met Gizmoz founder Eyal Gever in the late 90's when he was running Gizmoz -predecessor Zapa Digital Arts. Zapa developed personalized animated avatar technology, which is now a hot business as virtual worlds have become big business.

Gizmoz has raised $6.3M in Series A led by Benchmark Capital with Columbia Capital. In its latest incarnation, Gizmoz was launched four years ago, and was seeded by around $4M in angel capital. The company came out of Israel but now has its HQ in NYC.

CEO Eyal Gever

In our view, what sets Gizmoz apart from other avatar makers is its sense of style. Its personal taste, but we think that Gizmoz avatars just look cooler than those from voki and particularly Meez, which look cheezy.

For distribution has thus far partnered with Rockyou, and Freewebs where its avatars can be inserted within slide shows. Gizmoz is free and plans to make a living through the sale of extras for your avatar.

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