Veoh Assets Acquired

JERUSALEM: The assets of the video sharing website Veoh Networks—which filed for bankruptcy and shuttered its operations in February—have been acquired by the Israeli start-up Qlipso.

Qlipso bills itself as content-sharing platform that features 3D avatars, webcam and voice technology. It says it has acquired "substantially all" of Veoh’s assets, allowing its own"synchronized media sharing and socially-interactive environment to tap into Veoh’s library of more than one million videos, TV shows, online games and other interactive content, as well as Veoh’s tens of millions of active monthly users." Qlipso is backed by Jerusalem Venture Partners.

"By bringing together features of both Qlipso and Veoh, we are taking the best of social, multiplayer online gaming and applying that to mainstream digital content, such as videos and music, for a mainstream audience," said Jon Goldman, the CEO of Qlipso. "This provides not only a terrific user experience, but also a vastly improved target audience for advertisers."

Qlipso enables users to identify themselves using 3D animating avatars, webcams or Facebook thumbnails, along with social features such as video, voice and text chat. It supports Flash-based media, including video, music, games, slideshows, presentations, widgets and other digital content, via its proprietary portable media player. Other web publishers will have the opportunity to incorporate Qlipso’s features on their own sites.