Prezi is a presentation software company founded in 2009, with offices in Budapest, San Francisco, and Riga. As of April 2018, Prezi had more than 100 million users who had created more than 325 million public presentations that have been viewed over 3.5 billion times. The word prezi is the short form of "presentation" in Hungarian.
History
Prezi was founded in 2009 in Budapest, Hungary, by Adam Somlai-Fischer, Peter Halacsy, and Peter Arvai. The earliest zooming presentation prototype had been previously developed by Somlai-Fischer to showcase his media-art pieces. Peter Halacsy, an engineer, saw one of these presentations and proposed to improve the software. They were joined by entrepreneur and future CEO, Peter Arvai, with the goal of making Prezi a globally recognized SaaS company. The company incorporated on May 20, 2009, and received its first major investment from TEDtwo months later. In November 2009, a San Francisco office was opened and the first US employee was hired. 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. A Prezi iPhone app was launched in late 2012. In March 2014, Prezi pledged $100M in free licenses to Title 1 schools as part of the Obama administration's ConnectED program. November of that year saw the announcement of $57M in new funding from Spectrum Equity and Accel Partners. In February 2015, Prezi launched Nutshell, an app for creating 'mini-movies' from photos. Prezi for Android was launched in 2015, and in June 2016, the company launched Prezi Business. In April 2017, Prezi Next—a new HTML5-based product—was released. In May 2017, Prezi acquired Infogram, a data visualization company based in Latvia.
Products and features
Prezi
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 Next
An update to the original Prezi presentation software, Prezi Next features a redesigned editor, designer templates, and Prezi Viewer for Android and iOS devices. Additionally, Prezi Next makes it possible to use augmented reality in presentations.
Prezi Business
Built especially for professionals, the Prezi Business platform combines the core features of Prezi Next 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.
Platform compatibility
Prezi Next is an HTML5 application that runs on JavaScript. It is also compatible with most modern systems. Prezi Next does not support Internet Explorer.
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.
Education
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 1 high school teachers across the nation.
Conversational presenting
The term "conversational presenting" was coined by the company in 2015 to describe the organic flow of information Prezi enables. By letting presenters adapt the order of their content delivery, this method allows questions and concerns to be addressed as they arise, rather than according to a scripted path.
Some elements of Prezi presentations cannot be read aloud by means of a screen reader for users with disabilities. American educators have been advised that Prezi is not compliant with the Americans With Disabilities Act. The company has created a set of tips on making Prezi presentations ADA-compliant.
Research
A 2017 study by Harvard University researchers examined why people prefer one presentation style over another. In the study, Prezi's zooming user interface was preferred over other presentation methods such as PowerPoint or oral presentations.
Revenue model
Prezi uses the freemium model. Presentations created using the product's free Public-license type appear on the Prezi.com website, which is publicly viewable. Customers who pay for an Enjoy, Pro, or Pro Plus license can control their presentations' privacy settings. Pro and Pro Plus users have access to the Prezi desktop app, which enables offline editing. Prezi also offers an educational license for students and educators, as well as Prezi Business, which is designed specifically for teams.
