Prezi is quickly becoming the de facto alternative to a boring PowerPoint presentation.
In the past 10 months, the company has doubled its user base, from 10 million to 20 million users, gaining 1 million new users a month.
It's likely to get even more popular because the online presentation site recently added support for sound.
Prezi launched in 2009 and soon won over TED, the nonprofit behind the conference series and TED Talks video lectures, as an investor. The TED folks thought that Prezi was going to pitch them as a customer, but gutsy cofounder and CEO Peter Arvai used a Prezi to ask for an investment. It worked and TED organizer Chris Anderson agreed to invest an undisclosed sum. Since then, Prezi has raised a total of $14 million from venture capitalists such as Accel Partners.
TED speakers are obviously encouraged to use Prezi. But TED and Prezi last month launched a worldwide contest asking people to submit their own Prezi based on a TED Talk that inspired them. The winner would get his or her presentation showcased on the TED blog.
Last week, Hedwyg Van Groenendaal of the Netherlands won for her Prezi based on Bryan Stevenson’s 2012 TED Talk “We need to talk about an injustice."
Here is the winning example of a Prezi using sound. It's definitely thought provoking.
