Prezi

Not to be confused with Preci or Précis (disambiguation).
Prezi
Type of site
Presentation Collaboration
Available inEnglish, Portuguese, Spanish, Korean, Japanese, German, Italian, French, Hungarian
HeadquartersSan Francisco, United States Budapest, Hungary
OwnerPrezi Inc
Founder(s)Adam Somlai-Fischer
Peter Halacsy
Peter Arvai
Employees210 (2024)
URLwww.prezi.com
LaunchedApril 5, 2009; 15 years ago (2009-04-05)
Current statusActive

Prezi is a Hungarian video and visual communications software company founded in 2009 in Hungary, with offices in San Francisco, Budapest and Riga as of 2020.[1] According to Prezi, in 2021, the software company has more than 100 million users worldwide[2] who have created approximately 400 million presentations.[3][1][4] In 2019, they launched Prezi Video, a tool that allows for virtual presentations within the video screen of a live or recorded video.[5] The word Prezi is the short form of "presentation" in Hungarian.[6] As of January 2022, the company had around 300 employees in 13 countries.[7]

History

The building housing the Prezi offices in Budapest (2016)
Prezi offices in San Francisco (2020)

Prezi was founded in 2009 in Budapest, Hungary, by Adam Somlai-Fischer, Peter Halacsy, and Peter Arvai.[8] The company incorporated on May 20, 2009, and received its first major investment from TED two months later.[9] In November 2009, a San Francisco office was opened.[10]

In early 2011, Prezi launched its first iPad application. That same year, it received $14M in Series B venture capital funding led by Accel Partners.[11] A Prezi iPhone app was launched in late 2012.[12]

In March 2014, Prezi pledged $100 million in free licenses to Title 1 schools as part of the Obama administration's ConnectED program.[13] November of that year saw the announcement of $57 million in new funding from Spectrum Equity and Accel Partners.[14]

In February 2015, Prezi launched Nutshell, an app for creating 'mini-movies' from photos.[15] Prezi for Android was launched in 2015, and in June 2016, the company launched Prezi Business.[16] In April 2017, Prezi Next—a new HTML5-based product—was released.[17] In May 2017, Prezi acquired Infogram, a data visualization company based in Latvia.[18]

In 2017, Prezi started to observe a shift from presentations being primarily onstage and in-person, to increased virtual presenting, and the company began a broader effort to refocus around improving virtual meetings and integrating into virtual communications tools.[4][19] In November 2019, Prezi launched Prezi Video, a video tool that lets users give virtual presentations in the screen of a live or recorded video, enabling video presenters to interact with their visual content like a newscaster or weather-person.[5][20]

Teachers were the quickest audience to adopt Prezi Video, and by April 2020 Prezi had teachers in 175 countries using Prezi Video in their virtual classrooms.[21][22] Prezi Video received a 2020 Award of Excellence from Tech & Learning Magazine.[23]

In July 2020, Prezi named President Jim Szafranski as the new CEO, and announced that Co-Founder and CEO Peter Arvai would become Executive Chairman. Szafranski joined Prezi as Chief Operating Officer in 2015 and was named to the Board of Directors in 2018, before being elevated to President in 2019.[24][25]

Products and features

The company's flagship platform is a visual storytelling software alternative to traditional slide-based presentation formats. Prezi presentations feature a map-like overview that lets users pan between topics, zoom in on details, and pull back to reveal context. Prezi Video is integrated with popular video chat platforms and communication tools; it can be used in Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Hangouts, Slack, Facebook, GoToWebinar and Webex.[19][26][27][28]

An update to the original Prezi presentation software, Prezi Present (formerly Next) features a redesigned editor, designer templates, and Prezi Viewer for Android and iOS devices. Additionally, Prezi Present makes it possible to use augmented reality in presentations.[29]

One of Prezi Video’s key use-cases is for business presentations on live or recorded video, allowing the presenter to maintain a face-to-face connection with their audience.[30] Steven M. Baule and Julie E. Lewis state that "making a Prezi video is fairly simple", and that the "presentation engine is robust and allows for embedded video from YouTube or other sources".[31]

The Prezi Business platform combines the core features of Prezi Present with business-focused productivity tools, including real-time data analytics, integration with the business collaboration platform Slack, commenting and co-editing features, and the Live Prezi feature, with virtual meeting rooms for hosting remote Prezi presentations.[32] The Prezi Design platform has widely used infographic capabilities, which was built on Infogram, which Prezi acquired in 2017.[27][33]

Uses

The platform has been used in the conference setting by the Clinton Foundation, Lufthansa, IBM, and The Independent, and is a staple at both SXSW and TED.[9] Prezi Business is designed specifically for sales and marketing professionals. The platform combines conversational presenting capabilities with business-focused features such as collaboration, Slack integration, and analytics.[32] Prezi worked closely with the ConnectED initiative since its inauguration by President Barack Obama in 2013, providing free Prezi licenses to hundreds of thousands of Title I high school teachers across the nation.[13] It has also been used for creative purposes, such as Alexandra Saemmer's digital poem Böhmische Dörfer.

References

  1. ^ a b Sebag-Montefiore, Clarissa (3 July 2020). "Great Escapes: Prezi Founder Peter Arvai on How to Make Your Home a Refuge". Barron’s Penta. Retrieved 7 April 2021.
  2. ^ "Prezi announces Google Slides integration". TechRepublic. 29 July 2021.
  3. ^ "Prezi introduces dynamic video teaching tools as education moves online". VentureBeat. 16 October 2020. Retrieved 7 April 2021.
  4. ^ a b What, Now (1 October 2020). "Are you still doing ordinary screen-share?". CNET. Retrieved 7 April 2021.
  5. ^ a b MacLellan, Lila (24 January 2020). "Prezi wants to make you the Rachel Maddow of your office". Quartz. Retrieved 7 April 2021.
  6. ^ Arvai, Peter; Halacsy, Peter; Somlai-Fischer, Adam. "Prezi Founders" (Interview). Interviewed by Gary Goldman. Daily Brink. Archived from the original on 2012-11-13. Retrieved 2023-01-29.
  7. ^ Handley, Lucy (2022-01-25). "The rise of the 15-minute meeting — and how to run one". CNBC. Retrieved 2022-02-21.
  8. ^ Coleman, Alison (7 November 2014). "How Prezi Helped Turn Budapest Into Europe's Newest Startup Hub". Forbes.com. Retrieved 7 April 2021.
  9. ^ a b Schwartz, Ariel (31 July 2013). "The First Company that TED Ever Invested in is Changing the Way We Make Presentations". Fast Company. Retrieved 7 April 2021.
  10. ^ "Prezi Co-founder Retires After 12 Years". Hungary Today. 29 July 2020. Retrieved 7 April 2021.
  11. ^ "Company Announcements". Prezi (Press release). 15 December 2011. Retrieved 7 April 2021.
  12. ^ "View Presentations On The iPhone And Edit On The iPad With New Prezi Apps". Tech Crunch. 28 November 2012. Retrieved 7 April 2021.
  13. ^ a b Farr, Christina (28 February 2014). "Adobe & Prezi commit $400M to President Obama's digital literacy program". VentureBeat. Retrieved 7 April 2021.
  14. ^ Butcher, Mike (19 November 2014). "Prezi Secures $57M Growth Round From Spectrum And Accel, Passes 50M Users". TechCrunch. Retrieved 7 April 2021.
  15. ^ O'Hear, Steve (10 February 2015). "Prezi Launches Nutshell, An App To Turn Photos Into 'Mini-Movies'". TechCrunch. Retrieved 7 April 2021.
  16. ^ Sawers, Paul (7 June 2016). "With 75M users, Prezi targets businesses with new collaboration and analytics tools for presentations". VentureBeat. Retrieved 7 April 2021.
  17. ^ Maina, Antony (2 May 2017). "New Prezi Next Offers Audience Feedback in Real Time on Your Next Presentation". Small Business Trends. Retrieved 7 April 2021.
  18. ^ Sawers, Paul (16 May 2017). "Prezi makes its first acquisition, snaps up Latvian data visualization startup Infogram". VentureBeat. Retrieved 7 April 2021.
  19. ^ a b Chin, Monica (21 September 2020). "Prezi is releasing new video features to make virtual teaching more exciting". The Verge. Retrieved 7 April 2021.
  20. ^ Technology, Bloomberg (26 November 2019). "Prezi's Video Tool Improves Live Presentations, CEO Says". Bloomberg. Retrieved 7 April 2021.
  21. ^ Finance, Yahoo! (8 September 2020). "There will be a 'massive shift' in how teaching in the workplace is executed: Prezi CEO". Yahoo! Finance. Retrieved 7 April 2021.
  22. ^ Markets, Bloomberg (14 September 2020). "Prezi CEO Talks Mainstream Tech in Education". Bloomberg. Retrieved 7 April 2021.
  23. ^ Editors, TL (24 July 2020). "Tech & Learning Names the Winners of the Awards of Excellence Contest". Tech & Learning. Retrieved 7 April 2021. {{cite web}}: |last= has generic name (help)
  24. ^ "Jim Szafranski Leads Prezi (And All Of Us) Into The Future Of Interactive Content". Forbes. Retrieved 7 April 2021.
  25. ^ Schőnviszky, Csenge (29 July 2020). "Prezi Co-founder Retires After 12 Years". Hungary Today. Retrieved 7 April 2021.
  26. ^ Graham, Jefferson (20 August 2020). "10 cool Zoom app plug-ins to enhance your video meeting experience". USA Today. Retrieved 7 April 2021.
  27. ^ a b Kaplan, Juliana (1 October 2020). "How the CEO of a startup challenging the dominance of Microsoft Powerpoint conquered his quarantine mornings". Business Insider. Retrieved 7 April 2021.
  28. ^ Sawers, Paul (16 October 2020). "Prezi introduces dynamic video teaching tools as education moves online". VentureBeat. Retrieved 7 April 2021.
  29. ^ Cruz, Claudia (25 April 2017). "Prezi Next permitirá usar la realidad aumentada en presentaciones" [Prezi Next brings augmented reality to presentations]. CNET (in Spanish). Retrieved 7 April 2021.
  30. ^ Donnellan, Laurel (20 November 2020). "Jim Szafranski Leads Prezi (And All Of Us) Into The Future Of Interactive Content". Forbes. Retrieved 7 April 2021.
  31. ^ Baule, Steven M.; Lewis, Julie E. (2012). Social Networking for Schools. Linworth. p. 81. ISBN 9781586835378.
  32. ^ a b Boyd, Stowe (7 June 2016). "Prezi Business: Moving out of the Auditorium to the Meeting". Gigaom. Retrieved 7 April 2021.
  33. ^ Green, Alisha (7 February 2020). "Next slide, please: Prezi CEO adds more presentation products to the lineup". BizJournals. Retrieved 7 April 2021.
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