January 28, 2015 | The Israeli company ClickTale, a leading provider of digital customer experience solutions, announced that it raised $35 million in new funding. The investment round was led by the global investment firm KKR, together with Amadeus Capital Partners, Viola Credit and other investors. ClickTale offers a full enterprise-grade SaaS solution that allows customers to actually see how visitors are interacting with their website. Some of ClickTales clients include Fortune 1000 companies like Home Depot, Tele 2, Sears, Adobe and Walmart. ClickTale will reportedly use the new funds to expand its global footprint, including its North American presence, and to accelerate the development of its product. Deloitte recognizes ClickTale as one of the fastest growing companies in EMEA. ClickTale was founded in 2006 by Dr. Tal Schwartz and Arik Yavilevich.

January 28, 2015 | The former English Football Association chairman Lord Triesman and Terry Venables, the former England manager, were part of a panel that chose twenty Israeli companies specializing in sports technologies to take part in a business delegation to the United Kingdom. The twenty startups were selected out of eighty applicants to participate in the 2015 Future Sport conference to be held in March. In taking part in the conference, the sports technology companies will have the opportunity to present their ideas to top names in the sports industry and corporate groups while on a three-day trip to London and Manchester. The six person panel responsible for choosing the startups was headed by Daniel Saunders, chief of staff of the economic and trade department at the Israeli embassy in London.

January 28, 2015 | The Israel-based center of education technology innovation, MindCET announced that it will launch the 2nd annual “Global EdTech Startup Awards” competition. The competition seeks to promote the EdTech ecosystem and will name “The Most Promising EdTech Startup in 2015″. Last year’s winner was BrightBytes, a US-based company that provides analytics and assessment data tools to the education market. Startups can begin submitting applications to the competition beginning today and through April 2015, with the global finals set to take place in September 2015. Besides MindCET, the competition is supported by EdTech Incubator in London, and Inncubator, among others.

January 27, 2015 | Israel’s Ben Gurion University of the Negev advanced to 24th place on the 2014 Universitas Indonesia GreenMetric rating of world universities. The Israeli university was rated 24th out of 360 universities from 62 countries, and received the highest ranking among Israeli universities. This is the fifth year that the ranking has been conducted, comparing universities efforts in campus sustainability and environment-friendly university management.

January 26, 2015 | The Israeli medical device company developing treatments for central nervous system diseases, BrainsGate, announced that it raised $26 million at a company value of $70 million, before money. According to the company, $11 million of the amount has already been invested in the company, while the remainder will be invested in the future, subject to certain conditions. One of the investors, Elron Electronic Industries, which also owns 30 percent of the company, will invest $8 million in two stages. Elron asserts that the leading investor in the round is a global health sector company, along with existing private investor Israel Makov. The company, which develops treatments for strokes using an electrical device that attempts to restore blood flow in the brain, has raised $70 million to date. BrainsGate was founded in 2000.

January 25, 2015 | The small business financing network BlueVine announced that it raised $18.5 million in Series B funding. The investment round was led by the newly branded Greylock Partners IL, now known as 83North, as well as Lightspeed Venture Partners, Silicon Valley Bank, Correlation Ventures and other private investors. The company will reportedly use the funds to expand sales and marketing activity, operations, employment opportunities, and to pursue new software integrations. BlueVine allows small business owners to open a white-label bank account and fund their invoices with the click of a button, at attractive return rates. BlueVine was founded in 2013 by Nir Klar and Eyal Lifshitz.

January 22, 2015 | A leading cloud data encryption company Vaultive announced that it raised $8 million in a recent financing round. The round was led .406 Ventures, New Science Ventures and Harmony Partners. According to the company, the funds will be used to fuel its growth and advance its cloud data encryption platform. In addition, Vaultive announced new additions to its executive team including naming Jonas Hellgren as President and CEO and David Kahan as CFO and General Counsel. Vaultive was founded in 2009 by Maayan Tal and Ben Matzkel and is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts.

January 22, 2015 | According to a “Calcalist” report, Amdocs will acquire the Israeli company PONTIS for $150 million. Amdocs, a leading software company with research and development centers in Israel, and PONTIS have cooperated together in the past and Amdocs is even an investor in the company. PONTIS is a big data analytics and marketing platform that carries out continuous contextual engagement. PONTIS was founded in 2003 and employs 200 employees at its offices in Raanana.

January 22, 2015 | Check-Cap, the Israeli medical device company that has invented non-invasive imaging tests for colon cancer, announced a revision of its original IPO prospectus. The company has reportedly revised their prospectus with the US Securities & Exchange Commission to state the company hopes to raise between $12-$14.4 million at a share price ranging between $10-12 per share. The new prospectus would give Check-Cap a company valuation of $83-99 million after money. After the company goes public, it will be traded on NASDAQ under the ticker symbol CHEK. Check-Cap was founded in 2005 by CTO Dr. Yoav Kimchy.

January 22, 2015 | Mobileye‘s shares on the New York Stock Exchange have reportedly lost up to 37 percent of the their value. “Globes” reports that this amounts to a $4.8 billion loss in the value of the company’s market cap, now valuing the market cap at $8 billion. At its peak following the company’s IPO this summer, Mobileye’s share price reached $60.28 last October, but has since declined $37.74 per share, and at a time when US capital markets are performing strongly. According to “Globes” assessment, this could mean that Mobileye will offer up a second offering, due to the interests of major investors like Goldman Sachs that owns a  12.3 percent stake in the company. Mobileye develops collision prevention technology and was founded in 1999 by Hebrew University Professor Amnon Shashua and Ziv Aviram.

January 22, 2015 | The Global Head of MasterCard Start Path, Stephanie Wyper, will arrive in Israel in February to meet with local startups developing FinTech solutions. The credit card giant is looking for young startups with seed funding and that are pre-Series A funding that are interested in pitching their idea as part of the MasterCard Start Path. The selected startups will we awarded a paid trip to Dublin, Ireland to participate in a final interview for the MasterCard Start Path Europe program. The Start Path Europe program will begin in April 2015 and will provide selected participants with a 12-month hybrid onsite and virtual experience that includes mentorship from MasterCard professionals as well as the ability to leverage existing MasterCard solutions.

January 21, 2015 | The popular coffee chain Starbucks announced that it will offer Duracell Powermat‘s wireless charging technology in ten of its central London stores. Technology invented by the Israeli company Powermat in 2009, Starbucks customers can ask for a ring at the counter that will help connect their phone to one of the wireless charging spots. The introduction of the technology into London franchises follows positive reviews for the technology in San Francisco branches of the beverage provider, a service that was launched last year in 200 different branches. Powermat, now popularly known as Duracell Powermat for the company’s cooperation with the international battery producer, was founded in 2006 by Ran Poliakin.

January 21, 2015 | Before its anticipated NASDAQ IPO, the Israeli medical device company Check-Cap announced changes to its board of directors. The company, which has developed a non-invasive X-Ray pill for intestinal screening, hopes to raise $15 million in its IPO that was announced last week. The new members of the board include Yuval Yanai, the former CTO at Given Imaging, a Check-Cap competitor that was sold to the Irish company Covidien for almost $1 billion, and Steven J. Hanley, a former president at Covidien and CEO of MediBeacon. Check-Cap was founded in 2005 by Dr. Yoav Kimchy.

January 21, 2015 | The preference and trends-based advertising solutions company Taykey announced that it received $15 million in new funding. In addition, the company released a new marketing platform that automatically discovers and activates trends according to age and interest. The $15 million investment comes from Eric Schmidt’s venture arm Endeavors, as well as SoftBank Capital, Sequoia Capital, Marker LLC and Tenaya Capital. The company has seen impressive growth, growing almost 600 percent since January 2013 while serving Fortune 500 companies like AT&T, Disney, Marriott, MasterCard and others. Taykey was founded by Amit Avner in 2009.

January 21, 2015 | Ravello Systems raised $28 million in the company’s third round of funding, bringing total capital raised by the company to $54 million. The funding round for the Israeli company was led by Qualcomm incorporated through its venture capital arm Qualcomm Ventures as well as SanDisk Ventures, Sequoia Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners, Norwest Venture Partners and Vintage Investment Partners. Ravello’s system allows enterprises to achieve a balance between public and private cloud resources. Ravello was founded in 2011 by the team that founded the KVM hypervisor, President Benny Schnaider and CEO Rami Tamir.

January 21, 2015 | The mobile app marketing platform AppsFlyer announced that it raised $20 million in Series B funding. The company’s NativeTrack platform is used by developers, brands and agencies to launch campaigns that encourage app downloads and tracks in-app activity. Companies can then use the information collected by the NativeTrack platform to tweek software development, user experience and other factors to optimize the usage of their mobile apps. According to company CEO Oren Kaniel, the new funds will be used to further develop NativeTrack and its software features, as well as to open local offices in a number of countries and to possibly pursue an ‘acquisition,’ he reported to VentureBeat. The Series B funding round was led by Fidelity Growth Partners Europe, together with Magma Ventures and Pitango Venture Capital, and is added to the $18 million raised by the company to date.

January 20, 2015 | Professor Yosef Shiloh from Tel Aviv University was awarded the first Olav Thon prize for natural sciences and medicine. Prof. Shiloh, a researcher investigating the genetics of cancer, will be awarded NIS 1.3 million (approx. $331,700) at a ceremony held in Norway on March 5th. The prize, worth 5 million Norwegian Krones, was established by the Norwegian billionaire and real estate tycoon Olav Thon, the richest man in Norway, who decided to donate all of his money to philanthropic projects focusing on education and the sciences.

January 20, 2015 | The Israeli company Visualead, the creator of Visual QR code technology, announced that it secured Series B funding from China’s Alibaba Group. In addition to raising funds, Visualead and Alibaba Group entered into a strategic cooperation agreement according to which Alibaba will use Visualead’s patents and technology across their ecosystems. Visualead will reportedly use the funds (an undisclosed amount) to develop the next generation of ‘Offline to Online’ (O2O) technology. Alibaba’s investment in Visualead is the first investment by the Chinese ecommerce giant in an Israeli company.

January 19, 2015 | Teva Pharmaceutical Industries and Philips have launched a new venture called Sanara Ventures. The company will be a platform for the growth of medical device companies in Israel, aiding them in their progress from the earliest stages until the company goes international. The goal of Sanara Ventures, which will be headed by CEO Assaf Barnea, a business consultant for the World Bank, will be to provide answers and assistance to global challenges in the health sector.

January 18, 2015 | The 3D printer company Stratasys, which acquired Israeli company Objet in 2012, introduced a new 3D printer that prints dental materials. Objet Eden 260VS Dental Advantage 3D printer is set to meet the production needs of mid-sized dental labs and mid-to-large sized orthodontic labs. “Stratasys is fully committed to the digital dentistry market. The Objet Eden260VS Dental Advantage brings supremely accurate 3D printing technology to any dental lab seeking to benefit from the future of digital dentistry and orthodontics,” says Stratasys global dental director Avi Cohen. Stratasys, one of the world’s leading manufacturers of 3D printers, merged with Israeli company Objet in 2012 and since the Israeli company’s technology has been integral in the development of the company’s latest technologies.

January 18, 2015 | This year’s ‘Genesis Prize,’ bestowed annually by the Genesis Philanthropy Group, chose actor Michael Douglas as this year’s winner. Often dubbed as the ‘Jewish Nobel Prize,’ the ‘Genesis Prize,’ a $1 million prize, is awarded annually by the Israeli Prime Minister in Jerusalem. The prize was inaugurated last year as a partnership between the Israeli prime minister’s office, the Genesis Philanthropy Group and the chairman of the Jewish Agency. Douglas will reportedly use the prize money to promote inclusiveness and diversity in Judaism.

January 15, 2015 | The Israeli platform Windward was awarded the Global Technology Innovation Leader Award by Frost & Sullivan for 2014. Frost & Sullivan, a global growth consulting firm, bestowed the award on Windward for its innovative big data solution for organizing ship and vessel activity across world oceans. Windward’s platform works by collecting data from ships worldwide, about 100,000 data points per day, providing decision-makers and seamen with important insights on what is happening at sea. The technology is mainly used by companies and organizations to track the path of certain ships, but Windward hopes to also provide keen insight to financial markets on larger trading patterns. Windward was founded in 2010 by Matan Peled and Ami Daniel.

January 15, 2015 | The Israeli food manufacturer Strauss Group announced that it will expand its cooperation with China’s Haier in water purification. Strauss reports that the companies signed a Memorandum of Understanding that will see the reorganization of their business, according to which Strauss will pay Haier NIS 30 million (approx. $7.6 million) for a 34 percent stake in the joint venture, as well as for the licensing to use Strauss-invented water purification technology in their water systems sold in China. The deal to establish a joint venture between the companies was originally signed in 2010, when Strauss signed an agreement with Haier Group to establish a joint water venture, with each of the sides paying $20 million.