October 24, 2017 | One hundred forty-four Israeli startup and high-tech companies raised $1.44 billion in the third quarter of 2017, surging from $933 million in the third quarter of 2016 and increasing their funds by 14 percent over the $1.27 billion of the second quarter, according to a survey of the IVC Research Center. While the average financing round reached a five-year high at $10 million, the number of deals declined to its lowest number in the past five years. There were 457 deals in total but just over 140 deals in the third quarter of 2017. Still, a late round by transportation company Via of $250 million boosted the results of 2017’s third quarter upwards, with five deals over $50 million making up 33 percent of the quarter’s total amount.

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• October 24, 2017 | The Israeli-based JAL Ventures, a new venture capital fund launched by brothers Joshua and Amiram Levinberg, has raised $60 million. The money will be invested in companies with a yearly sales turnover of $1 million. It will focus on the B2B technology and security markets. The fund has already made investments with three companies including cyber security company Dome9 Security, tourism data company Fornova, and Ametrine Technologies, a company that has developed a multispectral camouflage technology. JAL Ventures was founded 10 years ago, but this specific fund is served under the Levinberg brothers who founded it with general partners Tal Shaked and Yair Elbaz. The Levinberg brothers are also part of the founding team at Gilat Satellite Networks.

 

 

 

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October 24, 2017 | Israeli-based AI video creation platform Wibbitz has raised $20 million in Series C funding. The round was led by Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments (BDMI) with contribution form The Weather Channel network, The Associated Press, TF1 Group, and existing investors like NantMobile, lool Ventures, and Horizons Ventures. Wibbitz will use the funds to continue expanding globally in areas like product, design, sales, marketing, support, development, etc. The Tel Aviv company will also use its funds to invest in the advancement of the artificial intelligence technologies and automation capabilities of its web-based platform for a better user experience. They also hope to launch products for new markets. Wibbitz uses artificial intelligence to create short videos based on text news stories. The company also has an office in New York. It was founded in 2010 by Zohar Dayan and Yotam Cohen who are the current CEO and VP of Business Development respectively.

 

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October 24, 2017 | Chinese appliance maker Haier Electronics, part of Haier Group, opened an innovation center in Israel this week with a focus on smart home technologies. The company said it would be looking for smart household goods technologies to integrate into its product line and help Israeli companies looking to expand into China. Mr. Wang Ye, vice president and general manager of the Advanced Innovation Center in Haier’s appliance group said “the decision to open an innovation center is fully aligned with Haier’s strategy: the world is our lab.” Haier Group acquired General Electric Co.’s appliances unit in 2016 in a deal worth $5.4 billion.

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October 23, 2017 | Travel e-commerce giant Booking.com plans to open an innovation center in Tel Aviv. CEO Gillian Tans announced this news in a LinkedIn post on October 18. The innovation center will be dedicated to artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. There is no word on when the center will be established, but the company is currently recruiting for three Israel-based jobs including full-stack developer, UX designer and a data scientist in machine learning. Tans said the company chose Tel Aviv because the city is “one of the most tech-forward markets in the world.” Booking.com already announced it bought Tel Aviv’s Evature, a startup developing natural language and chatbot technology for the travel industry. The sum of the purchase was not disclosed. Amsterdam-based travel site Booking.com was founded in 1996 and bought by The Priceline Group in 2005. It receives 1.5 million night reservations a day.

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October 23, 2017 | Israeli-founded taxi app Gett is worried that their most significant investor Volkswagen AG, has decided not to commit to the company’ s latest round of funding at the present time, a Bloomberg report said. The report states that new investors are uncertain about helping to fund Gett until Volkswagen commits to the round. There are a few options on the table. It’s possible that Volkswagen may decide to invest later on. Gett may also split the round into two parts so that have investors who passed earlier on can opt back in. Gett is considering the later stage to be in December, according to Bloomberg. The German car company has already invested $300 million into the Tel Aviv-based taxi app. The report says that Volkwagen is looking into the backing of its own tech in order to catch up with its rivals in the digital space, rather than focus on traditional car manufacturing as it did in the past. Gett was founded in 2010 by Roi More and Dave Waiser.

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October 23, 2017 | South Korean giant Samsung is in talks to potentially open an Artificial Intelligence research center in Israel, with the president of the Semiconductor Business of Samsung Electronics’ Device Solutions Division, Dr. Kinam Kim, recently visiting the Jewish state to examine the possibility. A source familiar with the talks told the Israeli daily Calcalist that, if established, the center would employ dozens of engineers. Samsung would be joining Intel and Amazon who have both announced the launching of AI centers in Israel in recent months. The conglomerate already operates a number of centers in Israel, including the Samsung Global Innovation Center (GIC) in Tel Aviv, focused on investing in Israeli startups and entrepreneurs, the Samsung Catalyst Fund, which specializes in seed investments and early-stage startups, and two R&D centers in Tel Aviv and Herzliya.

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October 22, 2017 | Israeli-based drugmaker NeuroDerm has been acquired by Japanese drug  company Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma Corporation for $1.1 billion. The deal was first made public in July but was finalized last week, as announced on October 18, 2017. Mitsubishi Tanabe says it hopes the deal will help it achieve sales of over $700 million in the US by 2020. NeuroDerm was delisted from Nasdaq yesterday and Mitsubishi will pay NeuroDerm shareholders $39 in cash per share. NeuroDerm is a clinical-stage company that develops treatments for central nervous system disorders, specifically Parkinson’s disease. The company expects to submit an application to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2018 and receive approval in 2019. It was founded in 2003 in Rehovot by Eli Heldman. NeuroDerm will keep its name and become a subsidiary of Mitsubishi Tanabe, which will merge an existing part of its company into it.

 

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 October 19, 2017 | A cancer treatment drug developed by Israeli-based biotech company Kite Pharma has been approved by The U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The company’s Yescarta drug is approved for treatment of certain kinds of blood cancer called non-Hodgkin lymphoma. It uses a technology to take out T-cells (white blood cells that fight infection), engineers them to fight the cancer, and then returns them to the cancer patient, to produce a specific form of treatment. The drug will sell at $373,000 for each treatment. This news comes after American pharma giant Gilead Sciences Inc. announced the acquisition of Kite Pharma for $11.9 billion at the end of August. Kite Pharma was founded by Arie Belldegrun and Joshua A. Kazam in 2009. [Photo: mTOR-FKBP12-RAPAMYCIN]

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October 17, 2017 | The Junction, an Israel-based seed stage program operated by VC fund F2 Capital, is ready to receive applications for Wave 18, a program that works with 5 to 6 selected companies for a 6-month time frame to focus on growth, achieve market traction,and empower founders, CEOs, and CTOs for future B2B tech success. Companies should be focused on industries that include Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, and Connectivity, including more specifically energytech, fintech, drones, robotics, enterprise software and more. These firms can become part of a community of more than 130 companies that have raised over $360 million between them. Upon acceptance, companies will receive guidance from leading F2 capital mentors as well as mentors in their field, access to corporate partners like HP, Deloitte and more, connections to an international network of customers, investors, and recruits, and perks like free office space in Tel Aviv, cloud hosting credits and more. To apply, click here.

 

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October 16, 2017 | Israeli-based overactive bladder treatment startup Vensica Medical has raised $2 million in a round led by Minnesota-based urology and gynecology device proprietor Cogentix Medical. Cogentix will receive one seat on the Vensica board with options to acquire the entire company for an additional $8 million. Vensica Medical is a private preclinical startup in the process of developing a system to treat overactive bladder (an urgent need to urinate and involuntary loss of bladder control) by using a type of needle-free ultrasound device that will deliver Botox to the bladder using ultrasound technology. Vensica Medical was founded by Avner Geva in 2014.

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October 15, 2017 | Microsoft Ventures is partnering with Israel’s Vertex Ventures, North America’s Madrona Venture Partners,  and Europe’s Notion Capital to launch an AI startup competition in Israel, North America, and Europe. Winners will receive a total investment prize $3.5 million. The Innovate.AI competition will look at very early-stage AI startups in the above mentioned regions and award $1 million to one startup per region. This will be in addition to the $500,000 “AI for Good” prize. All prizes will come with $500,000 Azure credits. Microsoft’s Executive VP of Business Development Peggy Johnson says the competition isn’t about cash, but rather the fact that the partners will really invest into very early-stage startups that aren’t even on anyone’s radar yet. Startups can apply to the Innovate.AI competition until December 31. Microsoft Ventures is the venture capital arm of Microsoft, currently investing in technology companies (Series A and beyond).

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October 15, 2017 | Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba is opening an R&D center in Israel. CTO Jeff Zhang revealed at Alibaba’s Computing Conference in China that the company was opening seven R&D centers around the world over the next three years as part of a $15 billion global research program. The R&D labs will be located in Tel Aviv, Beijing, Hangzhou, San Mateo, Moscow, Bellevue,  and Singapore. Zhang says Alibaba is looking to recruit 100 talented researchers worldwide in areas like data intelligence, the Internet of Things, fintech, and more. The Chinese firm has greatly expanded in the past year, and is now in direct competition with US e-commerce giant Amazon.

 

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October 15, 2017 | Israeli and US-based manufacturer,  TIPA Sustainable Packaging, an eco-friendly developer of groundbreaking bio-based flexible packaging, has closed an $11 million Series B finance round. Leading the round is Austin Hearst, an owner and director of Hearst Corporation. Austin and Gabriela Hearst were joined by TIPA investors GreenSoil Investments and Horizons Ventures. The company hopes this new round will allow it to expand sales in new territories as develop new generations of sustainable packaging solutions for a wider amount of food and non-food goods. TIPA, whose office is based in Hod HaSharon, was founded by Daphna Nissenbaum and Tal Neuman. It’s products are available in the US, France, England and the Netherlands.

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October 11, 2017 | The Beersheva High-Tech Park Bridge was chosen by a panel of judges to win the long span category at the triannual Footbridge Awards. This bridge, also called the double-helix bridge or DNA bridge, for its unusual design, links Beersheva’s University railway station with the Gav Yam High Tech Park, next to the Ben Gurion University of the Negev. The $25 million bridge opened in January 2016. The bridge, commissioned by the Beersheva municipality, was designed by Bar Orian Architects with Rokach Ashkenazi Engineers taking part as structural engineers. Lighting design was by Orly Avron-Alkabes. The Footbridge Awards 2017, which highlight the best in bridge design, renovation, and lighting for cycling, pedestrian, and equestrian bridges, are presented once every three years. The long span category is for new footbridges with a maximum span greater than 75 meters. Beersheva’s bridge beat out competitors from Canada and New Zealand. Beersheva’s bridge was announced as the winner in the 6th International Footbridge Conference in Berlin. [Photo: Ben Gurion University of the Negev]

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