Innovating in Payment Technology: Plimus CEO Hagai Tal (Part 2)

Sramana: Would you describe some of the companies you invested in after you returned to Israel?

Hagai Tal: I invested in companies in media payment or social media. I invested in companies only when I felt I strongly understood the direction the market was going. I invested only if I felt I could provide added value to the company because that was my primary goal. I invested money into the company to demonstrate that I was indeed serious about the company and helping the to grow the business, finding the right partnerships, and developing the right product. I wanted to help them get to the point where they were independent or help develop them to the point where they would be able to raise money from a larger firm.

Some of the companies I invested in moved to cash-positive positions immediately. RayV is one such company; they do online peer-to-peer streaming. It is a company that would either go big or go nowhere. There is no middle ground. They were able to raise money from a VC. The same goes for Kontera, another company I invested in that delivers in-text advertising. Payoneer is another company I invested in that does online debit cards for affiliates. Instead of having money sent via PayPal, Payoneer allows money to be sent to a debit card. Another company I have invested in is Amadesa. They offer analytic and conversion improvement products for e-commerce sites. They needed private equity to help them grow faster. I also made some investments in media companies that just needed startup capital to hire people, then they were able to start making money a few weeks later.

That was a very exciting time. I looked at a lot of different companies and was able to get involved in a lot of opportunities. I did this from 2005 to 2008. One of the companies I got involved with, Plimus, was run by two men whom I had met a few different times earlier in my life. They were two IT guys who built the platform from scratch with no investment at all. It soon grew to be too big and complicated for them to manage, and they approached me to try and help them sell their company. After approaching people in the market, I figured out that it would be better to try to fix the company, organize it, and then sell it. I came back to the founders and made the recommendation that we find a private equity partner to buy 50% of the shares, and that I would come and run the company.

Sramana: How big was Plimus at that time?

Hagai Tal: When I joined it had 19 people. We did around $5 million in revenue and under $1 million in EBITA.

This segment is part 2 in the series : Innovating in Payment Technology: Plimus CEO Hagai Tal
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