News Briefs

July 28, 2016 | Israeli agTech data company Prospera has raised $7 million in a Series A financing round led by Bessemer Venture Partners. The company enables farmers to maximize yields by using artificial intelligence to analyze databanks related to yields. Prospera’s technology captures climate and visual data from the field and provides actionable insights to growers via mobile and web. The Tel Aviv based company has 30 employees and was founded in 2014 by CEO Daniel Koppel, CTO Shimon Shpiz, and VP R&D Raviv Itzhaky. Prospera’s customers include US farms that supply the largest retailers in North America and Western Europe.

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July 27, 2016 | Israeli company Mobileye, which develops vision-based driver assistance systems that help prevent collisions, has ended its partnership with car manufacturer Tesla Motors. The announcement comes on the heels of of a recent fatal crash of a Tesla car, which was operating on autopilot mode. Mobileye, which was founded by Prof. Amnon Shashua and Ziv Aviram in 1999, recently teamed up with BMW and Intel to manufacture a driverless car by 2021.

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July 27, 2016 | Israeli cyber security company SafeBreach has closed a $15 million Series A funding round. The round includes new investors Deutsche Telekom Capital Partners, Hewlett Packard Pathfinder and Maverick Ventures, along with previous investors Sequoia Capital and Shlomo Kramer. With the new funding, the company, which has developed continuous security validation, will expand R&D, sales and marketing positions to more effectively meet demand from customers and partners. Based in Tel Aviv, CEO Guy Bejerano and CTO Itzik Kotler, veterans of the IDF Air Force and IDF Intelligence unit 8200, founded SafeBreach in 2014. The company has raised $19 million to date including the latest financing round and has 30 employees.

 

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July 27, 2016 | Israeli startup Engie, which has developed an app for streamlining the process of taking a car to the garage, has raised $3.5 million in an Series A financing round led by OurCrowd with participation from other investors including Waze co-founder and former president Uri Levine. Engie is a smartphone app that connects to the car’s computer, analyzes the car’s condition and offers real time quotes from mechanics. The company was founded in 2014. Since the app was launched, more than 200 garages around Israel have joined it, and it has almost 100,000 users in the country. The funds raised will help Engie expand overseas.

 

 

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July 26, 2016 |The Israel Venture Capital Research Center (IVC) has published its IVC-Shibolet Israeli Private Equity Market Survey for the second quarter of 2016. The survey showed that private equity investment in Israel in the first half of 2016 fell 24% to $1.6 billion in 29 private equity deals from $2.1 billion in 53 deals in the corresponding period of 2015. In the second quarter of 2016, 13 Israeli private equity deals accounted for $1.3 billion, up from $270 million invested in the preceding quarter, but below the $1.6 billion in the corresponding quarter of 2015. The average deal amount climbed to $98 million, the highest quarterly average in the past four years. Foreign PE funds lead Israeli PE deal-making, with 80 percent of total capital invested in the first half of 2016. The survey also showed that 88 percent of all PE investments were made in the technology sector.  Also, straight equity deals dropped 50% in the first half of 2016.

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July 26, 2016 | Israeli wastewater treatment company Emefcy has raised Australian $31.6 million (US$23.6 million) on the Australian Stock Exchange after closing a placement of shares. The company raised the money from investors that included funds and institutional bodies from the US, Hong Kong, China, Australia and Singapore, but not from Israel. Emefcy was founded in 2008 by CEO Eytan Levy and CTO Ronen Shechter. The company has developed a high-quality, low energy consumption wastewater treatment technology, compared with other technologies on the market.

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July 25, 2016 | Israeli startup DreaMed Diabetes, which develops diabetes treatment and management solutions, announced today that it has raised $3.3 million from Norma Investments Limited, representing businessman Roman Abramovich, and a strategic investor. The funds will be used mainly for the further development of Advisor, DreaMed Diabetes’s decision support technology platform for determining the optimal patient-specific insulin treatment plans leading to balanced glucose levels in people with diabetes. Based in Petah Tikva, the company was founded in 2014 by Eran Atlas and Shahar Miller.

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July 25, 2016 | Israeli pharmaceutical company Entera Bio, a subsidiary of DNA Biomedical Solutions Ltd., has raised $7.5 million in a loan convertible into shares. Pontifax led the round, with participation from private investors. Based in Jerusalem, Entera Bio is developing orally administered drugs as a replacement for injectables and IVs.

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 | July 24, 2016 | Israeli cloud computing startup Redis Labs has closed a $14 million Series C financing round. Bain Capital Ventures and Carmel Ventures led the round, with participation from other existing investors, at what the company described as a significantly increased valuation from the previous two rounds. Redis Labs said it will use the proceeds to expand sales and marketing efforts to accelerate global customer acquisition. Founded in 2011 by CEO Ofer Bengal and CTO Yiftach Shoolman, Redis provides cloud database services and has over 6,200 enterprise customers and its Redis Cloud service exceeds 55,000 accounts.

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July 24, 2016 |  BC Partners is to buy an 80% stake of Israel’s Keter Plastic at a company value of $1.7 billion. BC Partners beat out a joint venture of CVC Capital Partners and Goldman Sachs in a bidding war, according to Israeli and international media sources. BC Partners is a private equity firm operating from London, Paris, Hamburg and New York and specializing in European buyouts and acquisitions. It has also bought a number of US companies. Founded in 1948 in a small workshop in Jaffa, Keter has grown to become the world’s largest manufacturer of resin-based household and garden furniture. Its product range includes garden sheds, toolboxes, bathroom cabinets and backyard playhouses for children. The company now operates 29 plants in Israel, Europe and the United States. From its $880 million sales in 2015, Keter totaled a gross profit of $310 million, a 45% increase on its 2014 total.

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 | July 24, 2016 | US cloud computing company Salesforce.com has acquired Coolan, an Israeli data center management software startup co-founded by Amir Michael, a former Facebook and Google hardware engineer and one of the founders of the Open Compute Project for an undisclosed amount. Facebook’s open source data center and hardware design initiative. Salesforce’s initial plan is to use Coolan’s technology to optimize its infrastructure, Michael said in a blog post announcing the deal. Salesforce.com has previously bought three Israeli startups: SaaS encryption services company Navajo Systems in 2011, data-mining startup Bluetail in 2012, and data-entry automation startup Implisit Insights earlier this year.

 

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July 21, 2016 | Israeli startup Gauzy, which develops liquid crystals that can double as both glass surfaces and computer screens, has been chosen by Mercedes-Benz as the first company to participate in their startup accelerator which was launched last week at an event in Stuttgart, Germany. Gauzy’s co-founder Eyal Peso was invited by Mercedes-Benz Daimler to deliver a keynote speech at the event  in which he presented multi-applications of his cutting-edge technology. Gauzy’s patented liquid glass solution can replace glass in appliances, cars, windows and anywhere where glass surfaces are used, and serve as a monitor.

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July 21, 2016 | Israeli augmented reality startup Pixie Technology Inc. has closed a Series B financing round of $18.5 million. The investment was led by Spark Capital with the participation of Cedar Fund, OurCrowd and private investors. This round brings the total funds raised by Pixie to date to $24 million, having raised $5.5 million in 2013. Designed to help people easily track and find their favorite everyday items, Pixie Technology combines augmented reality navigation with innovative signaling technology. Pixie is headquartered in Los Altos, California and has a development office in Israel.

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July 20, 2016 | Israeli enterprise mobility startup Capriza has raised $23 million in a Series C extension funding round. The round was led by existing investor Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from existing investors Charles River Ventures, Harmony Partners and Tenaya Capital, and new investors Entre Capital and Vintage Investment. The company, which has raised $73m to date, intends to use the funds to continue to expand operations. Headquartered in Palo Alto and with its Israeli development office in Hod Hasharon, Capriza was founded in 2011 by chairman Amnon Landan, CEO Yuval Scarlat, CTO Oren Ariel, and VP R&D Ronnen Armon. Capriza provides an enterprise mobility platform that allows IT and business units to mobile-enable critical business workflows without any coding, APIs or integration by extending the capabilities of existing applications from SAP, Oracle, Salesforce as well as custom-built solutions. The platform is used by more than 100 enterprise customers spanning 30+ industries and 500,000+ users including City of Los Angeles, DirecTV, Flex, The Linde Group, Titan Machinery and Volvo Financial Services.

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July 20, 2016 | Israeli mobile threat defense startup Skycure announced it has completed a $16.5 million series B investment led by Foundation Capital. Skycure will use the funds to expand the company’s presence in EMEA and APAC, broaden its foothold with Global 1000 customers, and invest in further developing the company’s award winning mobile threat defense platform. This round brings Skycure’s total funding to $27.5 million. All of the company’s previous investors participated in this round. As part of the announcement, Skycure will add Foundation Capital general partner Paul Holland to the company’s board of directors. Skycure was founded in 2012 by Adi Shaharabani and Yair Amit.

 

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