Prezi is an American 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 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.
^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.
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