April 17, 2018 | Israeli company Applitools announced that it raised $31 million in Series C funding led by OpenView, with participation from its existing investors Sierra Ventures, Magma Venture Partners, iAngels, and La Maison. Applitools platforms allow users to automate application tests that usually would be conducted manually, seeing how the app would appear on browsers, devices and more. Applitools said in a statement that it will “use the investment to fuel market expansion of its AI-powered visual testing and monitoring solution by scaling its R&D, operations, and sales.” Applitools CEO Gil Sever said, “Our mission is to help customers automate all visual aspects of application delivery, and address the growing importance of providing exceptional digital experiences across any device, browser, operating system, and language. We are excited to partner with OpenView to scale our enterprise-grade platform to support digital transformation with the velocity and quality that businesses demand.” Since it was founded in 2013 by Sever and Adam Carmi, Applitools has raised more than $46 million. Applitools sayd it developed the first and only “visual AI engine (Applitools Eyes) that mimics the human eye and brain in a reliable and scalable fashion.” The company says the tool has tens of thousands of users across more than 300 companies, and “recently crossed a total of 100 million visual comparisons and one billion component level validations.” Applitools is headquartered in San Mateo, California, and has an R&D center in Tel Aviv.

April 16, 2018 | Israeli-founded, Barcelona-based business travel booking and management platform TravelPerk has announced it has raised $21 million in a Series B funding round, according to the company. The round was led by Berlin-based venture capital firm Target Global and London firm Felix Capital. Spark Capital, Sunstone, and Amplo also participated in the round. This brings the company’s total money raised to $30 million. TravelPerk has been ranked the fastest-growing SaaS company in Europe and the fourth fastest-growing globally on the SaaS 1000 list, the statement says, and the company “has built the world’s largest bookable inventory” by integrating not only with hotels, airlines, rail companies, and all the major leisure travel sites. The next-generation platform, founded in 2015 by CPO Javier Suarez, and CEO Avi Meir, who completed his military service in the main technological unit of the Israeli Intelligence Corps, is a free service that also offers 24/7 customer support.

April 16, 2018 | Israeli cannabis company Together Pharma has announced that its subsidiary Globus Pharma, specializing in the medical cannabis sector, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to sell medical cannabis or oil to an unnamed Canadian company with a license to grow, produce and import medical cannabis, a statement from the Israeli firm said. Under the agreement, the Canadian company will buy 50 tons of dried inflorescences (flowers) of cannabis each year or its equivalent, five tons of medical cannabis oil from Globus Pharma. The companies will also collaborate in R&D and promoting technologies in the medical cannabis sector. The companies estimate that the sales revenue of this deal will be between $3.17 and $4.7 per gram of inflorescence. Globus Pharma will provide the Canadian company with medical cannabis from farms in Israel “subject to receiving an export permit for medical cannabis” or from its farm in an overseas country, which has an export agreement with Canada. Israel is currently going through a medical cannabis export freeze ordered by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in February, which suspends reforms that would allow for the legal export of cannabis. The state and its cannabis industry stand to lose out on an opportunity to bring in $1 billion in annual revenue, but while Israeli cannabis farmers were angered by the decision, many of Israel’s leading cannabis companies and supporters remain optimistic that the ban will be lifted soon. Also, many of the Israeli companies, such as Together, are continuing to market and sell their medical cannabis products through overseas companies. The Canadian company is currently applying for a license to market and sell its own medical cannabis products in Canada and abroad. The company has told Globus that it expects to receive the license within four to five months.  Globus Pharma already has a sales agreement with a German company for 25 tons a year and a sales agreement for three tons a year with another Canadian company. Together also recently reported that “it will work to establish up to 25 acres of greenhouses in a country outside of Israel in a self-financed project,” according to the press release.

April 15, 2018 | Tel Aviv University announced that it was setting up a new venture capital fund to invest in Israeli startups, the first Israeli university to make such a move. The fund, TAU Ventures, will invest in early-stage startups and will run various incubation programs in different tech fields, the university said. The first program off the ground focuses on cybersecurity and is run in partnership with Japanese multinational NEC Corporation. According to Globes, which cites sources close to the university, the fund will total some $20 million. TAU Ventures’ offices will be in Ramat Aviv and will be run by Nimrod Cohen, formerly of Plus Ventures, which led investments in a number of successful startups including YOTPO, Bringg, and WSC Sports, sold to Snapchat. TAU President Joseph Klafter said in a statement, “Tel Aviv University is the most innovative and entrepreneurial university in Israel and I am proud that we arrived at the next required step, with the establishment of TAU Ventures, the new investment vehicle of the university.” Klafner said the initiative sets the university “in line with the leading universities in the world,” like MIT, Stanford, and Berkeley, which also have venture arms. Cohen said that “the advantage of the fund will be [in] identifying unique opportunities in early stages and suggested added value to the entrepreneurs among the students and our alumni of TAU.” Among the investors in the fund are Singapore-based Chartered High Tech Fund, Maxine Commercial Capital in Los Angeles, and additional investors from Canada. Eyal Agmoni, the head of Chartered Group said, “we made this investment out of our strong belief in the Israeli high-tech industry in general, and from knowing that a big part of entrepreneurship in Israel [involves] Tel Aviv University.” Bahzad Kianmahd, the co-founder and acting chairman and CEO of Maxine Commercial Capital said, “As an enthusiastic person in higher education and the future of Israel, I am proud to be a part of a fund which will operate under the TAU umbrella.”

April 12, 2018 | Just before Israel’s annual Holocaust Remembrance Day on April 12, Israel’s official memorial to Holocaust victims Yad Vashem announced a cooperation with Israeli video platform startup Wibbitz. Yad Vashem will use Wibbitz to make Holocaust stories documented in texts and sound clips into video clips, through the company’s artificial intelligence platform. The goal is to create visual content that is shareable and can be easily distributed online. Wibbitz, founded in 2011 by Yotam Cohen and Zohar Dayan, creates video content for over 400 sites and has locations in Tel Aviv, New York, and Paris. The Jerusalem-based Yad Vashem was established in 1953 as a memorial dedicated to preserving the memory of Holocaust victims and those who fought Nazi oppressors as well as researching genocide and the Holocaust phenomenon.

April 12, 2018 | Sequoia Capital Israel General Partner Gili Raanan has announced he is launching a new cybersecurity venture capital fund named Cyberstarts, according to a press release. This is said to be the world’s first venture capital firm backed by cybersecurity entrepreneurs. “The fund’s unique model is introducing a fresh approach for pre-investment decision making process and post-investment portfolio services,” the statement said. The fund has already received $50 million in funding in a very short time, thanks to the support of various cybersecurity entrepreneurs, including Check Point co-founders Shlomo Kramer and Marius Nacht, Imperva co-founder Amichai Shulman, IBM-acquired Trusteer founders Mickey Boodaei and Rakesh Loonkar, Palo Alto Networks founder Nir Zuk, and Microsoft-acquired Adallom founder Assaf Rappaport. Sequoia capital is also an investor in the fund. The fund also includes 10 US-based Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) to support the decision making process.

April 11, 2018 | OurCrowd, the leading global equity crowdfunding platform has announced that the recent exits of two companies in the past two days, its portfolio companies have achieved a total of 20 exits over the past five years. American footwear and apparel giant Nike announced Tuesday that they have acquired Israeli computer vision company Invertex for an undisclosed amount and San Francisco-based bike sharing service Jump is set to be acquired by Uber following a trial program with the company earlier this year. Other exits among the 20 include companies like Argus Cyber Security, which was acquired by Continental AG in 2017 for over $400 million, Shopial, a company that moves your online store to social networks, acquired by Magento in 2017, and ReWalk, a wearable robotics company for people with lower limb disabilities, who raised $36 million in an IPO on NASDAQ. Founded in 2013 by Jon Medved, OurCrowd currently has almost 25,000 accredited investors from over 112 countries. It has raised over $650 million and invested in 145 portfolio companies and funds. The company predicts it will surpass $1 billion in assets under management, raised through equity crowdfunding from investors.

April 11, 2018 | Sources tell Israeli daily Globes that online orders at Israeli pharmaceutical chain Super-Pharm will soon be taken off shelves, packed and shipped by robots. The network has hired Tel Aviv-based startup CommonSense Robotics to operate a logistics center where products will automatically be packed by robots. The center is scheduled to launch in the next six months. Super-Pharm will pay Commonsense Robotics a monthly retainer to operate the center, provide robot equipment, and employ workers. The service is expected to shorten delivery time, cut labor costs for retailers, and even cut delivery cost. CommonSense Robotics, a Tel Aviv-based company founded in 2015  aiming to help online grocery retailers offer on-demand, one-hour deliveries using robotics and artificial intelligence, raised $20 million in a Series A funding round in February.

April 10, 2018 | US-based medical device company Medtronic is acquiring Israeli company VisionSense, which develops imaging and visualization tech for minimally invasive surgery, for $75 million, up to $50 million cash and a further $25 million in milestone payments, Globes first reported. VisionSense was founded in 1998 and raised $20 million over the years, according to the report. The company developed a 3D-HD camera that “optically maps the surgical field.”

April 10, 2018 | Nutrition data startup Nutrino, a provider of nutrition-related data services and analytics technology, announced Monday that it has raised $8 million in a Series A funding round, bringing its total funding to $10 million. Nutrino was founded in 2014 by Jonathan Lipnik, now the company’s president and chairman of the board, and Yaron Hadad, its chief scientist. The latest funding round was led by Pereg Ventures, Nielsen Ventures, the venture arm of data analytics giant Nielsen, and Gandyr Group, who were joined by existing investors. The funding will be used to expand partnerships and help grow Nutrino’s food database and nutrition data insights platforms, which is said to be the largest in the world, and collates data from millions of access points and food items globally. With offices in San Francisco and Tel Aviv, Nutrino uses machine learning and artificial intelligence to better understand individual responses to particular foods through feedback from various data points. Its nutrition insights platform, which collects, processes, and analyzes food-related data is a tool used by food and beverage groups, digital health industries, fitness companies, and more. The data and insights collected help Nutrino define an individual’s FoodPrint, or digital signature, of how food affects a person’s body. Nutrino CEO Yael Glassman tells NoCamels that the funding will go toward commercial expansion as well as into expanding and scaling the database. “Our proprietary technology, FoodPrint, uncovers the previously invisible connections between people and their food,” said Glassman in a company statement. “Nutrino is where data meets nutrition, and as we’ve demonstrated in our work with multinational partners around nutrition and diabetes, the opportunity is vast.” Ziv Ben Barouch, Managing Partner of Pereg Ventures said, “Digital Health is predicted to be worth several hundreds of billions in the coming decade…with skyrocketing consumer demand for increased information about what they eat and growing health awareness, nutrition data is the largest untapped sector of this industry, and Nutrino is perfectly positioned to address this opportunity.” Nutrino says that with an estimated 415 million people living with diabetes worldwide, expected to reach 642 million by 2040, the company “can offer smart, data-based, individualized insights for personal nutrition” in order to “empower[s] better food decisions and shape[s] better outcomes for individuals and businesses.”