Ustrategy

With A $1 Billion Plan, Bay Area Is First US Region Committing To Electric Car Infrastructure

Just in time for Thanksgiving, Better Place, the visionary company that promises to change our dependency on oil,  secured a $1Bil funding from the Bay Area's mayors on November 20th, the Marcury News reports. The funding will go toward establishing the charging and battery-swapping infrastructure for electric cars by 2012.

This makes the Bay Area the first US region to deploy the off-oil plan. Other countries already committed to the plan include Israel, Denmark and Australia.

The impact on, and synergies with, Tesla motors and other electric car manufactures is yet to be seen. For now, Better Place continues to make headway and is my pick for a company that's changing the world. You can read more and watch a video here.

plaYce relies on virtual goods sales; projects revenue by 2009, profitability by 2011

PlaYce, an Israeli startup and a TechCrunch 50 finalist that created ultra-realist immersive 3D in-browser destination site and platform for gaming developers is making significant headway. Today, the company was featured in an interview with the Israeli newspaper Globes, which said that PlaYce expects to see revenue in 2009 and be profitable by 2011.

PlaYce is basing a significant portion of its projected revenue stream not solely on ads (smart move) but on virtual goods sales--a $1.2 bilion dollars industry today (estimated to hit $6 billion in 2010). Virtual goods is one of the few business models that expect to see growth despite recessionary environment with $1 and $2 spendings multiple times throughout hours of play.  Last month plaYce opened up its platform to independent design developers, who can save up to 50-70% of their development costs. plaYce is currently taking beta requests here.

plaYce was founded in 2007 by Yoram Avidan and Carmel Gerber.  It secured an impressive $1 million angel funding in July 2007.

Disclaimer: I occasionally advise plaYce.