Intel Ignite Kicks Off 4th Cohort In Tel Aviv, Makes Munich Debut

By NoCamels Team April 13, 2021 2 minutes

Intel Ignite selects Israeli seed-stage startups for its second cohort, March 2020. Courtesy

Intel Ignite kicked off its 4th cohort in Tel Aviv this week with 10 Israeli companies selected to take part in the 12-week startup growth program. Ten startups were also chosen for the inaugural program in Munich, Intel Ignite announced in a statement on Tuesday.

In this 4th Tel Aviv cycle, 200 startups applied, 60 were initially selected and went through a deep due diligence process, 19 made it to the virtual selection day, and 10 made the final cut.

So far, 28 companies have taken part in the Ignite program, launched in Tel Aviv in 2019 to tap into high-impact, data-centric technology companies. Together, they have raised $200 million in funding, Intel Ignite indicated, while two have gone on to launch strategic partnerships with Intel.

Deci.ai and Intel are now collaborating to optimize deep learning interference on Intel Architecture CPUs, and Granulate will allow Intel to improve its Java-based performance results. Deci.ai was recently named to the fifth annual AI 100 report of top artificial intelligence companies by New York-based research firm CB Insights. And Granulate raised $30 million in Series B funding in February.

“We are excited to be kicking off our 4th program in Tel Aviv,” said Ranny Nachmias, the managing director of Ignite Tel Aviv. “With every cohort, it becomes increasingly challenging to choose just 10 startups from all of the amazing applicants. We saw an increase of verticals, products and technology types, such as 5G, robotics, deep tech, etc. and were impressed by the amount of well-funded companies at such an early stage.

“Over the past year and a half, we have been able to offer all of Intel Ignite’s up-and-coming startups access to leading Intel and industry experts who share their expertise from both business and technology perspectives. We can’t wait to work with our newest batch of companies, as well as take our amazing program international,” he added.

In September 2020, Intel Ignite announced that due to the success in Tel Aviv, it would expand to Austin (Texas) and Munich (Germany) and recently selected 10 European companies out of 392 to kick off its European debut. The Munich program will begin later this month.

All selected companies for the Intel Ignite program are paired with experienced mentors, and experience a personalized program tailored to their specific business and technology needs.

Like the two previous cohorts in Tel Aviv, the program will be conducted virtually and will include expert sessions on culture, product, go-to market, sales, introductions to top VCs, building and growing a business, avoiding founder fatigue, and more.

The 10 Israeli companies selected for the fourth cohort in Tel Aviv are:

AtmoSec, a SaaS cybersecurity company that secures inter-business application connectivity.
NeuroBrave, a software developer for neurotechnology applications.
Qwak.ai, a machine learning platform that enables companies to scale their ML-based products.
Spotnix, a tool for product and growth managers to help improve their KPIs [key performance indicators] by running thousands of analyses, and identifying and recommending concrete opportunities and actions.
Teramount, the developer of a next-generation optical connectivity solution for data centers.
Velocity, the developer of a platform that seeks to increase R&D velocity by allowing developers to create on-demand, fully isolated production-like environments in the same easy way they are creating new Git branches.
Zesty, the developer of a cloud cost-management platform that automatically optimizes cloud resources in real-time for a “dramatic” reduction in AWS spend.
1MRobotics, a startup operating in stealth mode.
Flow Security, a startup operating in stealth mode
R2 Wireless, a startup operating in stealth mode.