Daniel Nissan

Daniel Nissan (born 1966) is an Israeli-American Internet entrepreneur who was a pioneer in the early commercialization of VoIP, e-commerce, and online advertising. While at VocalTec in 1993, he led the company's shift to Internet-based communications as its Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing, and played a central role in the development of the first Internet telephony software, "Internet Phone." He is recognized as the first person to conduct a long-distance VoIP call. In 1995, Nissan developed the first online software store with credit card payments, and created the first commercial online advertising campaign in partnership with Yahoo! and The New York Times, a groundbreaking initiative that helped establish online advertising as a major commercial model for websites in the late 1990s. He later served as co-founder and CEO of NetGrocer (1996) and StructuredWeb (1999).
Career
VocalTec (1993 - 1996)
Nissan joined VocalTec in 1993 as Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing. He played a critical role in conceptualizing and developing the company's breakthrough product, Internet Phone, which became the first commercial software to enable voice communication over the Internet using the TCP/IP protocol. His strategic vision helped pivot the company from internal office intercom systems to becoming a global leader in Internet telephony.
While at VocalTec, Nissan is recognized as the first person, along with Ofer Shem-Tov (OST), to conduct a long-distance VoIP call between the BRM office in Jerusalem and Check Point Software's office in Ramat Gan.
In 1995, he developed VocalTec's e-commerce platform, one of the first online stores with real-time credit card processing. The system, integrated with IBM Lotus Notes, enabled users to download Internet Phone software, purchase a license key online, and unlock the trial version, setting an early model for online software monetization.
Nissan also initiated and launched what is widely regarded as the first commercial online advertising campaign in 1995. Under his leadership, VocalTec signed agreements with Yahoo!, The New York Times, and other major media outlets to run banner advertisements for its Internet Phone software. This campaign marked a major inflection point for digital media, laying the groundwork for online advertising to become a dominant commercial model for content-based websites throughout the late 1990s.
In addition to product and marketing leadership, he contributed to the development of a suite of IP-based communication tools for live voice, video conferencing, screen sharing, and online music distribution.
NetGrocer (1996 - 1999)
In 1996 Nissan co-founded NetGrocer, one of the earliest online grocery retailers, and served as President and CEO until October 1998.
• Nationwide launch. Under Nissan the service went live in July 1997, shipping non-perishable groceries via Federal Express to any U.S. address, with no membership fee and a flat $2.99 shipping rate for the first 10 lb.
• Product innovations. NetGrocer introduced one of the Web’s first “auto-replenishment” (recurring order) systems and a frequent-buyer program redeemable for airline miles, moves highlighted by Forbes in a 1998 profile of Nissan titled “Food Fighter.”
• Strategic investment. In November 1997 CUC International (later Cendant) purchased a 25 % stake in NetGrocer for $5 million, valuing the startup at about $20 million and providing strategic retail expertise.
• Portal distribution deals. To drive traffic, Nissan negotiated exclusive placement on major portals. An August 1998 agreement made NetGrocer the sole grocery partner on America Online in exchange for at least $15 million in payments over three years, giving the service exposure to 12 million AOL members. Similar deals were later signed with Yahoo!, Excite and iVillage, totalling about $23.8 million in commitments.
• IPO attempt and restructuring. NetGrocer filed in July 1998 to raise roughly $38 million in an initial public offering but postponed the deal in October amid a market downturn. After the IPO was shelved the company laid off up to 80 % of its 60-person staff and Nissan was replaced as CEO by Fred Horowitz. Wired later reported that NetGrocer owed $23.8 million to portal partners and raised shipping fees ten-fold in an effort to survive.
Although NetGrocer struggled with thin margins and high marketing costs, analysts credit Nissan’s nationwide, non-perishable model and aggressive portal strategy with demonstrating both the potential and the challenges of e-groceries, influencing later firms such as Webvan and FreshDirect.
StructuredWeb (1999 - present)
Nissan founded StructuredWeb in 1999, positioning it as one of the first Application Service Providers (ASPs) to deliver web-based marketing tools to technology resellers, well before SaaS became an industry norm. Drawing on lessons from VocalTec and NetGrocer, he insisted on a multi-tenant architecture from the outset, allowing every customer to share a single code base and accelerating product releases.
Early in the 2000s Nissan pushed StructuredWeb beyond simple email blasts, championing what became one of the first web-content-syndication engines for channel partners (2002). By 2005 he had added personalised email-marketing tools for OEMs such as Konica Minolta, proving that large enterprises would entrust outsourced digital campaigns to an external platform.
Throughout the 2010s Nissan continuously broadened the platform’s scope-rolling out social-media syndication (2012), lead-scoring with direct-mail triggers (2014) and auto-generated partner videos (2020).
Recognising the power of large-language models, Nissan personally led StructuredWeb’s pivot to generative AI. In 2023 he launched ChannelGPT, the first LLM-powered content engine in through-channel marketing, followed in 2024 by AssistantAI and EditAI for on-the-fly drafting, translation and rewriting.
To finance a new wave of AI features and international growth, Nissan negotiated a $30 million majority investment from Invictus Growth Partners in January 2025. The deal-StructuredWeb’s first external capital in more than two decades-kept Nissan in the CEO seat while adding Invictus co-founders John DeLoche and William Nettles to the board. Later that year Forrester Research named StructuredWeb a Leader in its Partner Marketing Automation Wave, citing Nissan’s AI roadmap as a key differentiator.
Under Nissan’s continuing leadership, the ChannelAI suite now integrates multi-touch campaign automation, rule-based lead scoring, personalised direct mail, video, and LLM-generated content-serving more than 100,000 channel partners worldwide.

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