Established in 2004, HIRO specializes in ad-insertion into video downloads.
The HIRO technology embeds dynamic up-to-date and highly personalized, mid-roll advertisements into downloadable video content.

The downloaded video content generates revenues each time it is viewed, no matter if it was through a direct download or if it was downloaded using any P2P network.

Company Profile

HIRO maintains close relations with major media companies in the United States and Europe. In 2006, the company was selected by Microsoft as one of Israel’s three most promising start-up companies.

HIRO launched its first commercial product with Jetix in Israel in Q2 2005. In 2007 the HIRO system was adopted by NBC's Dotcomedy.com in the US, BT, Fremantle-Media and Intel in the UK, and leading broadcasters and cable channels in Israel. In 2008, the HIRO Solution will launch with major content providers in the United States, Australia, and the UK.

The HIRO HQ is located in Tel Aviv, Israel, with Sales offices in New York, USA and Sydney, Australia.

Management Team

With HIRO-Media, The founders, Ronny Golan & Ariel Napchi are revolutionizing the digital video distribution model, offering viable, profitable and secure revenue streams to content owners and advertisers whilst allowing consumers to download free movies and television programs from a wide range of sources.

Both seasoned professionals with over 15 years experience in the hi-tech arena. The duo shares the Chief Executive role and the responsibility for fund raising, sales, growth strategy and corporate vision. Individually, Ariel focuses on Marketing, product development and administrating HIRO, while Ronny is responsible for technical and operational activities; as Chief Architect of the HIRO Codec, Ronny oversees the continued development of the HIRO video downloading and monetizing solution.

Prior to the inception of HIRO-Media, Ronny and Ariel co-founded and managed the successful wireless community start-up, Valis. With Napchi as CEO and Golan as CTO, later taking the role of COO, Valis built community tools for mobile phones, including the world's first mobile friend-finder application, with top tier customers such as Worldwide Vodafone, Motorola, Swisscom and Orange.

Founded in 2000, Valis raised a total of $8M from Pitango VC, Time Warner and AOL and was merged with CellTrex in 2003 to create Axis-Mobile, a world leader in consumer mobile mail and community solutions

Ariel Napchi

Prior to co-founding Valis and being its CEO, Ariel served as the VP of sales and marketing at Heidelberg Israel (a privately owned affiliate of Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG) and was involved in the formation of a British-based start-up which developed professional desktop publishing tools, eventually sold to Linotype AG.

Ariel was recently elected as one of the ten most promising start-up entrepreneurs in Israel, after holding senior positions in the high-tech arena for the past 17 years. He has a proven track record of success building ventures that provide marketplace solutions and value for investors. In fact, the previous three companies for which Ariel has worked have yielded liquidity events for investors in the form of two mergers and one IPO.

Ariel holds a BA in philosophy and humanities from Tel-Aviv University. He sometimes manages to win at tennis and shoots photographs with his Lomo when he needs to relax.

Ronny Golan

Ronny has an extensive background in cutting-edge R&D and management, spreading over more then 18 years of innovations in the fields of video and communication.
On the way to the inception of HIRO in 2004, Ronny co-founded and managed the successful wireless community start-up, Valis, and together with Ariel led it to its successful merger and later IPO.

Prior to branching out into entrepreneurial activities with Valis and HIRO, Ronny held key R&D and management positions for several hi-tech companies in Israel and is a specialist in video compression algorithms and application-server technologies.

Ronny strongly believes in social responsibility and in contributing to the community and made sure these values will become an integral part of the HIRO system by letting users donate ad viewings to their favorite charities.

Ronny holds a BSc in computer science from Tel Aviv University and an MBA from INSEAD.