News Briefs

August 7, 2016 | Israeli company Formlabs, which develops high resolution desktop 3D printers, has raised $35 million Series B funding round led by the Foundry Group. Other investors included Pitango, Pascal Cagni, DFJ Growth and CAD titan Autodesk, which promised ‘strategic collaboration’ with Formlabs as a part of their investment. The new investment will enable Formlabs to scale its operations to meet growing customer demand worldwide, grow R&D efforts, and to extend Formlabs’ reach in the market and ecosystem. Formlabs was founded in 2011 by Maxim Lobovsky, Natan Linder, and David Karnor, a graduate of the Herzliya InterDisciplinary Center (IDC) Zell Entrepreneurship Program.

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 August 7, 2016 | Israeli automated in-app marketing platform developer Insert has raised $10 million in Series A financing led by Battery Ventures and others including Shlomo Kramer. As part of the financing, Battery Ventures General Partner Itzik Parnafes will join Insert’s board. Insert provides marketers and product managers with an easy to implement solution for engaging with their app’s users. Founded in 2015 by CEO Shahar Kaminitz and VP development Yaron Goldberg, and based in Yakum north of Tel Aviv, the company has raised $15 million to date.

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August, 7, 2016 |  Google-owned GPS driving app Waze  has released a new safety feature that reminds users not to forget their child, pet or other loved ones in the car before getting out. The feature, called “Child reminder,” was made available to the public on Thursday, when Waze released its latest update on app stores for Android and iOS. As reported by NoCamels, the feature comes amid concerns over recent child hot car deaths. Since 1998, there have been 37 child heatstroke fatalities on average per year in the U.S. There have already been 26 heatstroke deaths involving children in the U.S. since the beginning of this year.  Like Waze’s other safety features, “Child reminder” is opt-in. The alert can be turned on and off in the app’s “general settings.” Drivers who choose to keep the feature on can also customize the alert “to include their child’s name or pet’s name. The alert will only appear if a driver has entered a destination in Waze and has arrived at that destination. Founded in Israel in 2007 by Ehud Shabtai, Amir Shinar, and Uri Levine, Waze has built a solid reputation for the way it lets users share real-time traffic data, prompting Google to acquire the company for more than $1 billion in 2013.

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August 4, 2016 | Two of the four Israeli representatives at the International Chemistry Olympiad, held last week in the city of Tbilisi in Georgia, won the silver and bronze medals. Held for the 48th consecutive year, it is the oldest scientific competition for high school-aged students. In total, 264 students from 66 different countries competed. The four  Israeli high school students trained at The Technion-Israel Institute of Technology’s Schulich Faculty of Chemistry. The winners are: Ron Solan of Rishonim High School in Herzliya (silver medal) and Rina Sevostianov from Makif Gimmel High School in Ashdod (bronze).

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August 4, 2016 | Israeli cloud optimization company Cloudyn has raised $4 million from Infosys, India’s second largest software company, in exchange for a minority equity stake. Based in Rosh Ha’ayin, Cloudyn was founded in 2011 by CEO Sharon Wagner, CTO Dr. Boris Goldberg and VP products Vittaly Tavor. The company raised $11 million last December in a financing round led by Carmel Ventures and has now raised $20.5 million to date including Infosys’s investment. Cloudyn’s single pane of glass approach provides clarity and actionable insights for optimal cloud management and the company’s systems monitor and optimize cloud deployment for many Fortune 500 companies.

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August 4, 2016 | Israeli medical device company Ornim Medical, has closed a series C financing round of $20 million. The Kfar Saba based commercial-stage medical technology company specializes in clinical research, development, and distribution in the field of tissue and cerebral blood flow and perfusion. The financing was led by Chinese medtech VC fund LongTec HongTao China Ventures LP with the participation of existing investors OrbiMed, GE Ventures, and others. Founded in 2004, the company has raised $70 million to date.

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August 4, 2016 | Israeli pharmaceutical giant Teva Pharmaceutical completed its $40 billion acquisition of the generics arm of rival Allergan on Tuesday, a move Teva hailed as confirmation of its intention to become one of the world’s largest drugmakers. The $40 billion deal, the largest in Israeli history, was agreed last year but finally confirmed on Tuesday. Allergan Generics was the third largest in the same market by sales, and the acquisition gives Teva a large market lead and catapults it into the top 10 pharmaceutical firms globally, according to the company’s figures.

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August 3, 2016 | Intel Capital, the global investment arm of the US-based chipmaker Intel Corp., has invested in three additional Israeli startups, Velostata, Panoply.io and Sedona Systems, for a total of $25 million, the company said in a statement. Along with other participating investors, Intel Capital led all three rounds in the companies. In this wave of funding, Panoply.io raised $7 million in Series A, while Sedona Systems and Velostrata raised $13.6 million and $17.5 million in Series B rounds respectively. This latest investment by Intel Capital brings the total funds invested in Israel to more than $345 million in more than 80 Israeli companies since 1997.

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August 3, 2016 | Spot.IM, an Israeli online community creation technology that allows any website to become their own social network, announced today it has closed a Series A funding round of $13 million. Notable investors in the round include Index Ventures, AltaIR and Norma Investments Limited, representing businessman Roman Abramovich, among other prestigious serial technology investors and various media and marketing visionaries such as James Hilton (CEO of M&C Saatchi Mobile),  Avishai Abrahami (Co-Founder & CEO of Wix), Giora Kaplan (Co-Founder & CTO of Wix), Nir Zohar (President & COO of Wix), Brian Bedol and Ran Tushia. Founded in 2012 by Nadav Shoval and Ishay Green, Spot.IM currently works with 4,600 active sites, enabling social engagement for more than 300 million unique monthly users for its media partners, which include News Corp, Meredith Corporation, Time Inc., Little Things, and Advertising Age.

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August 3, 2016 | Israeli flavors and food ingredients company Frutarom Industries Ltd. has signed an agreement to fully acquire Irish company Redbrook Ingredients Services Limited for $44.8 million (€ 40 million). The transaction is being financed through bank debt. This is Frutarom’s sixth acquisition in 2016 and part of its global expansion strategy. Redbrook was founded in 1987 and has an R&D and sales and marketing center and production site near Dublin as well as a production unit and R&D and sales and marketing center in Daventry, England, near Frutarom’s Wellingborough site. Redbrook has 39 employees. Frutarom was founded in 1933 by Yehuda Araten and Maurice Gerzon.

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August 3, 2016 | Israeli cyber security startup CyberX has raised $9 million in a financing round led by Flint Capital and including existing investors Glilot Capital Partners, Swarth Group, GlenRock, newly joined ff Venture Capital (ffVC) and additional angel investors. CyberX, which was founded by CEO Omer Schneider and CTO Nir Giller, both veterans of the Israeli Elite Cyber Security Unit, develops cyber security solutions for the Industrial IoT market. The company has raised $11 million to date.

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July 31, 2016 | Riverbed Technology has acquired Israeli SaaS company Aternity. No financial details were disclosed but San Francisco based Riverbed, which specializes in application performance products, is believed to be paying $60-70 million. Founded in 2004 by Amnon Yacoby, Amir Eldad, Eden Shohat and Orit Kapon, Aternity develops end-user experience monitoring tools. Aternity is headquartered near Boston in Westborough, Massachusetts and maintains its development center in Hod Hasharon. The company has raised $25 million to date and investors include Genesis Partners, Vertex Venture Capital and Intel Capital.

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July 28, 2016 |Israeli content recommendation company Taboola is set to acquire Israeli video ad company ConvertMedia. No financial details about the deal were disclosed but sources estimate the acquisition could approach $100 million. ConvertMedia’s 60 employees in Tel Aviv and New York will join Taboola. ConvertMedia provides outstream videos that reside inside publishers’ content. It is a complement to Taboola’s article-focused content discovery platform, which provides those recommendations at the bottom of pages across the web. In a blog post about the acquisition, Taboola CEO and founder Adam Singolda wrote that the two companies share a common goal: “to become one of the top video/TV companies in the world.”

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 July 28, 2016 | Israeli online gift card marketplace startup Zeek, announced today it has closed a $9.5 million Series B financing round led by Scale-Up Venture Capital. Other prominent investors in the round include Blumberg Capital, Qualcomm Ventures, FJ LABS (Fabrice Grinda), Waze founder Uri Levine, Emery Capital, Ton Ventures, Radiant Venture Capital, iAngels and Target Global. Zeek is a mobile app and website that allows users to buy gift cards and vouchers from their favorite brands at a discount and sell unwanted gift vouchers for cash, providing a solution to the estimated $100 billion of unused gift cards globally. This round of funding will support Zeek’s growth in the UK and expansion overseas, and the company hopes to attract new talent to advance their vision.

 

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July 28, 2016 | Israel EdTech startup SlateScience, which developed the Matific  educational math and science games for mobile and web platforms, has raised $45 million led by Australian entrepreneur Leon Kamenev. The company raised $12 million last year. Founded in 2012, the company’s products are sold in over 20 countries around the world and is available in 20 languages. Following the fundraising, Matific plans to expand its Israeli R&D center and is recruiting new employees.

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