April 19, 2018 | Israeli digital diabetes care platform GlucoMe and Norwegian electronic medical record (EMR) company DiaMan AS announced Tuesday the market launch of the GlucoMe digital diabetes care solution in Central America, according to a statement. The GlucoMe solution will first be introduced into Guatemala, Panama, and Dominican Republic and later into Costa Rica and Nicaragua followed by the rest of Central America. GlucoMe will integrate its digital diabetes solution provider with DiaMan’s diabetes-focused EMR software, under the agreement. DiaMan will lead the distribution of GlucoMe’s solution throughout Central America, including all products — wireless blood glucose monitor, mobile app, and diabetes clinic software for healthcare professionals. Working closely with hospitals and other institutions, DiaMan expects to reach up to 70,000 users in two or three years, the statements says. Founded in 2013 by Dov Moran and Yiftah Ben Aharon, GlucoMe’s digital diabetes platform consists of a smart glucose monitor, insulin pen monitor, mobile app and cloud-based digital diabetes Clinic. Currently, about 7 million people or 8 percent of the adult population of Central America have diabetes.  

April 18, 2018 | Israeli medical cannabis company Together Pharma announced Tuesday that its subsidiary Globus Pharma has signed a cooperation agreement to set up greenhouses of up to 25 acres in a foreign country, according to a statement from the company. The greenhouses will be set up no later than six months after the agreement signing. The cannabis harvesting is planned for the first quarter of 2019. Together did not name the country or company with who its subsidiary signed the deal. The deal could bring in annual sales of $75 to $300 million depending on the harvest, the statement said. Globus Pharma will own 51 percent and the partner will hold 49 percent. Together also announced on Monday that its subsidiary had 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.

April 17, 2018 | Israeli life sciences venture capital find aMoon Partners, co-founded by Dr. Yair Schindel and Marius Nacht, also the billionaire co-founder of cybersecurity giant CheckPoint Software Technologies, announced that it raised $200 million, with a goal for a total of $500 million, to invest in mid- to late-stage companies in the health and medical technologies field. The funds were raised from private investors. “The opportunity is vast,” Schindel said, according to Bloomberg. “There are about 1,500 life-sciences startups in Israel, of all types, and about 10 percent of them are mid- to late-stage opportunities. That’s a huge pipeline that we’re following very closely.” The average investment will be between $10 million and $40 million, he said, adding that most of the investments will be in Israel with possible opportunities in the US, the UK, and Switzerland. The first aMoon health fund was set up in 2017, with Nacht putting up $200 million. The fund invested in 16 startups.

April 17, 2018 | The Technion-Israel Institute of Technology has announced a $50 million naming gift from the Helen Diller Family Foundation to support the university’s new cutting-edge center for science and engineering. The center will be called the Helen Diller Center for Quantum Science, Matter, and Engineering, according to a statement from the university. “The gift…will strengthen the Technion’s position as a world leader in quantum science and engineering by providing the means for new faculty recruitment, establishing new infrastructure, seed funding for research and development, and educating a new generation of engineers with a master of quantum mechanics,” the university said. This is one of the largest single gifts ever to the Technion from an American donor. The Helen Diller for Quantum Science, Matter, and Engineering is also the first of its kind in Israel, hoping to advance the basic sciences while using the principles of quantum mechanics to impact various engineering fields and develop applications for a wide range of industries. The center will serve as a platform for collaboration between Technion scientists and engineers, as well as a research center for quantum computing, quantum communication, quantum computing, quantum sensing and detection, quantum materials, and quantum simulators.  

April 16, 2018 | Slidely, the popular visual content creation service and cloud-based video creation service based in Tel Aviv, has announced that its online video creation maker for businesses, Promo, will be integrated with Shutterstock, the leading American stock photography, stock footage, stock music and editing tools company, according to a statement. The new content integration adds more than nine million premium quality videos to the Promo video platform over the next few months, increasing the video library from 3.5 million to over 12.5 million. Promo, launched by Slidely in August 2016, has already attracted over 40,000 paying customers and has become one of the fastest-growing software-as-a-service video creation platforms for small-and-medium-sized businesses.

April 15, 2018 | Israeli startup Healthy.io announced a new partnership with the US National Kidney Foundation (NKF) and Geisinger, one of the largest health services organizations in America, for a clinical trial using a smartphone-enabled home urinalysis device for chronic kidney disease (CKD) among patients with high blood pressure. Healthy.io, according to the Tel Aviv-based company, “uses computer vision, machine learning, and user-centric design to turn the smartphone camera into a medical device.” The Israeli startup’s app will enable users to conduct a urinalysis test at home and securely share results with their clinicians to monitor the presence of albumin, which indicates kidney damage. Part of the clinical trial will be to “examine the effect of mailed, Healthy.io smartphone urinalysis kits (Dip.io test) to improve albuminuria screening compliance and detection of albuminuria.,” the companies said in a statement. Healthy.io CEO Yonatan Adiri said the company was “proud to pioneer its ‘adherence as a service’ platform with such forward-looking institutions as Geisinger and the National Kidney Foundation, adding that its “mission is to use advanced computer vision and patient-centric design to let clinicians empower their patients at scale without additional cost or effort.” He went on, “Like a Netflix for adherence we lean on the spread of digital technology and efficient logistics to offer on-demand testing delivered directly to the home. With a smartphone in your pocket, the point of care becomes wherever you are.” Alexander Chang, M.D., practicing nephrologist and assistant professor in the Kidney Health Research Institute at Geisinger, said, “Early detection of CKD is crucial so that risk factors can be aggressively managed to prevent end-stage renal disease and cardiovascular disease.” Kerry Willis, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer at NKF said the new trial “will provide important information on how to increase testing for CKD in this high-risk population.Our hope is that a home-based test makes it easier for patients at risk for CKD to comply with regular albuminuria screening and that this will lead to earlier diagnosis and treatment of CKD, reducing cardiovascular risk and preserving kidney function.” The clinical trial will get underway on April 16.

April 15, 2018 | Israel’s Partner Communications Company, which runs the low-cost cable and internet service Partner TV, announced a collaboration agreement in Israel with Amazon Prime Video. Partner TV customers will now “have access to the Amazon Prime Video service on Partner TV set-top box, which offers access to view a broad selection of global content and Amazon Prime original content, including TV series and movies,” Partner said in a statement. Partner TV said it is the first and only television service in Israel to offer Amazon Prime Video application on a set top box and the first OTT (Over the Top) service in the world to support this application on an Android TV set top box. Amazon made it’s Prime Video content available in 200 countries, including Israel in 2016 via computer, smartphone, and TV apps. This is the first partnership with a cable operator. Partner also offers Netflix free of charge for new subscribers for up to three months. The financial details of the Amazon-Partner deal were not disclosed.

April 12, 2018 | Israeli smart oven food tech company Genie Enterprise has announced they have closed a Series A financing round, which was “oversubscribed at $10 million,” according to a statement. Carl Marks Securities acted as exclusive financial adviser for the deal and its principals were also investors. The round will help grow Genie in the United States. Founded in 2014, Genie’s food technology company develops and markets smart ovens that cook quick, but tasty meals at restaurant quality from fresh, dried ingredients without preservatives or artificial flavorings. Founded in 2014, Genie develops and markets smart ovens they call “kitchen-in-a-box,” which can cook restaurant-quality meals “at the touch of a button” in two to three minutes, from pods that carry fresh, dried ingredients. Genie also markets these pods. The Genie smart oven scans a barcode on the pod to cook the meal. The company began targeting Israeli hospitals, hotels, cafes, and businesses in 2017 and now hopes to do the same in the US. They have been used by companies such as Apple in Israel.

April 11, 2018 | Israeli insurance giant Menora Mivtachim will team up with IBM accelerator, Alpha Zone, to strengthen their involvement in insurtech, Globes reports. Sources inform the Israeli daily that the insurance company will select advance-stage Israeli insurtech startups along with the accelerator.  The companies they select will receive insurance-based consultations and access to big data from Menora Mivtachim and access to cloud-based AI services and business assistance from IBM during the 20-week program, which will take place in IBM’s headquarters in Kiryat Arie. Menorah Mivtachim also partnered with global startup accelerator MassChallenge in January 2018.

April 11, 2018 | Karamba Security, an international provider of end-to-end automotive cybersecurity prevention solutions, announced Tuesday they have raised $10 million in funding from the US venture debt firm Western Technology Investment (WTI.) This brings Karamba Security’s total investment to $27 million. The company will use the money raised to acquire companies and technology assets to accelerate its Autonomous Security portfolio and address the growing demand for Karamba solutions. Founded in 2015, the Hod HaSharon-based company provides industry-leading automotive cybersecurity solutions for autonomous and connected cars. Security software products created by the company include Carwall and SafeCAN.