EX.CO  |
| Formerly | Playbuzz |
|---|
| Founded | 2012 |
|---|
| Founders | Tom Pachys, Shachar Orren |
|---|
| Headquarters | |
|---|
Key people | Tom Pachys, CEO [1]
Shachar Orren, CMO/CRO
Yaniv Lubinski, CFO
Oren Regev, COO |
|---|
| Website | ex.co |
|---|
EX.CO is a Disney-backed, [2] machine learning-driven video technology that helps media companies grow revenue across connected TV (CTV), web, mobile, and digital out-of-home (DOOH). [3] It is used by publishers and media owners such as Advance Local [4] , Hearst Newspapers, The Arena Group, PlayWorks, and Ziff Davis to monetize video content across screens. [5]
History
EX.CO was originally founded as Playbuzz in 2012 by Shaul Olmert and Tom Pachys. Pachys is a graduate of IDC as well as the co-founder of Whimado.
In its early years, Playbuzz raised several funding rounds, including a $3 million Series A from Carmel Ventures and a $35 million Series C in 2017 led by Viola Group with participation from existing investors including the Walt Disney Company and Saban Ventures. [6] [7]
In 2019, Shaul Olmert stepped down as CEO, with co-founder Tom Pachys assuming the role. Olmert eventually departed the company entirely. [8] Playbuzz then changed its name to EX.CO [9] and Shachar Orren was later named a co-founder of the company in 2021. [10]
In January 2024, EX․CO was chosen as the preferred video platform by the Local Media Consortium (LMC), a group focused on providing strategic partnerships for approximately 5,000 local media outlets including Bonneville International and WRAL. [11]
Technology and Focus
Historically, EX․CO created personalized experiences [13] for websites (such as interactive quizzes and polls) for businesses and publishers but in 2022, the company shifted its focus to video technology, concentrating exclusively on helping media organizations drive revenue growth through the monetization of video content.
In 2023, EX․CO announced new AI-driven content recommendations and premium video libraries for publishers that aim to identify the most contextually relevant video for each article and the highest-yielding feed for a page on a publisher's site. [14]
In 2024, EX․CO launched a vertical video player for publishers' mobile and desktop websites to help monetize content. [15]
Later that year, the Local Media Consortium—an organization representing approximately 5,000 local media outlets—named EX.CO as its preferred provider of video technology solutions. [16]
In early 2025, EX․CO expanded its ad serving capabilities to support connected TV (CTV) and digital out-of-home (DOOH) formats. Its system uses a proprietary yield optimization engine, powered by machine learning, to analyze large datasets, select the most effective demand sources, and adjust pricing in real time to improve ad performance and maximize revenue potential across channels. [17]
Also in 2025, EX.CO introduced an agentic AI taxonomy solution that uses large language models to automatically categorize video content, generating rich metadata to organize archives and support contextual ad inventory matching and monetization. This system was described as enabling publishers to transform unstructured video libraries into structured, searchable, and revenue-ready assets. [18]
Industry commentary has noted that EX.CO’s approach to CTV monetization emphasizes predictive insights over reactive decision-making, reflecting broader trends toward AI-enabled programmatic buying and unified yield strategies for media owners. [19]
In December 2025, company leadership stated that publisher-owned video remains a key defense against content commoditization in the age of AI summaries, highlighting that machine-learning-driven video placement and contextual matching provide engagement and revenue benefits that automated text summaries cannot replicate. [20]
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