The founders of Joongel which presented at the TC50 DemoPit are announcing a $100K investment from Israeli uber-Angel Dr. Yossi Vardi. Vardi pledged the investment on the spot at TC50 and the parties have since worked on finalizing the terms and paperwork.
Interestingly, the investment will go into a new company called “Modular Patterns, Ltd.” (no site yet) and is intended for the development of a new product as opposed to furthering the Joongel service/product the company showcased at TC50. The founders are keeping tight-lipped about the nature of the new product and were only willing to share that it “relates to web service collaboration”.
While the founders have explained to me that the new product will take priority, they will continue maintaining the business around Joongel. Here’s how I previously described it:
Joongel considers itself a platform for the creation of web-based toolbars. These are toolbar “strips” in the header area of a web page that require neither download nor installation. Site publishers can use Joongel to offer a search engine aggregator or a vertical search engine for travel, video, cooking, etc. The motivation for publishers is mainly through monetization via affiliation and ad rev-share.
Users can take advantage of Joongel directly through Joongel.com, using browser search plugins, or through eight websites dedicated to various verticals such as travel, shopping and entertainment.
Since TC50 Joongel claims to have experienced a steady growth of users which are adding their plugins, particularly images search, music search, social media search and Creative Commons & free stock photos search (which was suggested to the founders by our very own Erick Schonfeld). The company is in talks about opening local versions of Joongel in France, UK and China.