News Briefs

June 2, 2016 | Israeli enterprise guidance and engagement startup WalkMe has raised $50 million in a financing round led by Insight Venture Partners with participation from previous WalkMe investors, including Scale Venture Partners, Giza Venture Capital, Gemini Israel Ventures, and Mangrove Capital Partners. WalkMe provides a cloud-based service designed to help customer service managers to guide and engage customers and employees. Founded in 2012 by Dan Adika and Eyal Cohen, the company has raised a total of $92.5 million to date. WalkMe currently has 300 employees, including 175 in Israel, and is growing rapidly. The company has opened two new US branches over the past year: one in New York and one in North Carolina.

[sharethis-inline-buttons]

June 2, 2016 | International computing giant IBM has announced it will acquire EZSource, an Israel-based application discovery company, to help developers modernize mainframe applications for digital business. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. IBM, which has made 13 other acquisitions of Israeli companies since 1998, said the planned purchase is expected to close in the second quarter subject to completion of governmental review. Applications can be made up of hundreds of thousands of lines of code and updating the code may take weeks. EZSource provides a visual dashboard to show developers which applications have changed to ease the modernization process. EZSource was founded in 2003 and has offices in Israel, the United States, UK, Switzerland, Japan and Romania. Its clients include ING Life, Maybank and 7-Eleven. IBM’s last acquisition in Israel was Trusteer in 2013, for which it paid more than $600 million.

[sharethis-inline-buttons]

June 2, 2016 | EarlySense, an Israeli company providing contact-free patient monitoring, announced it has raised $25 million in a funding round led by Bank Hapoalim, with participation from Pitango Venture Capital, JK&B and other previous investors. EarlySense, which makes a sensor that is placed under the mattress and monitors the heart and respiratory rate, has to date raised $100 million. According to the company, over 100,000 patients will be monitored with EarlySense’s sensors this year. In January 2015, EarlySense raised $20 million in a round led by Samsung Ventures.

 

[sharethis-inline-buttons]

June 2, 2016 | Israeli startup Oribi completed a first round of funding of $5.4 million. The round was led by Sequoia Capital, TLV Partners, and investor Zohar Gilon. Oribi develops analytics tools for business intelligence, mostly for those working in product and sales. Oribi was founded in 2015 by serial entrepreneur Iris Shoor, who previously founded Takipi and VisualTao. The company operates with a small team of just three employees, but soon plans to expand its staff in Tel Aviv to 15, mostly programmers.

[sharethis-inline-buttons]

June 1, 2016 | Israeli data analytics startup Signals Group has raised $10 million. The round was led by late-stage venture fund Qumra Capital, which joins existing investors in the company Sequoia Capital and TPY Capital. The current round comes less than a year after the company’s Series B round in which it raised $15 million. The company says that new funding will be used to further accelerate Signals Group’s rapid global expansion and plans to recruit employees to its offices in Netanya, Geneva and New York.  Signals Founded in 2009 by its CEO Gil Sadeh and Kobi Gershoni, Chief Research Officer and General Manager US. Sadeh, the company currently employs more than 100 people. Signals Group collects, analyzes and pairs disparate external data sources for Fortune 500 companies including Johnson & Johnson, Procter & Gamble, and PepsiCo.

[sharethis-inline-buttons]

May 31, 2016 | Israel-based Twiggle announced they have secured a significant investment from e-commerce giant Alibaba. While the exact amount of the deal has not been disclosed, the investment is believed to be in the $5 million range. Twiggle already raised $2.2 million in their seed round followed by $12.5 million from strategic investor Naspers, along with State of Mind Ventures and Sir Ronald Cohen, bringing their total funding to date to over $20 million. Co-founded in 2013 by CEO Dr. Amir Konigsberg, previously one of the members of Google’s emerging markets operations and former managing director of MySupermarket.com, and Dr. Adi Avidor, a former engineering tech lead at Google, Twiggle’s groundbreaking technology works with e-commerce giants to make the online shopping experience more natural, allowing consumers to describe what they are looking for in real human language and receive results that are relevant.

[sharethis-inline-buttons]

May 30, 2016 | Global chip giant Intel announced yesterday that the company would create a fintech innovation lab in association with The Floor, a fintech hub based at the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange. The undertaking is aimed at identifying and developing technological innovations to upend and advance the global financial industry. Some of the technological focus will be devoted to blockchain (the technology behind crypto-currency Bitcoin), the Internet of Things (IoT) and biometrics. Intel intends to demonstrate its own technology at the lab and search for ways to collaborate with the hub’s entrepreneurs.

The Floor is backed by the Pando Group, a Chinese-Israeli venture capital fund, and has partnerships with international banks such as HSBC, RBS, Santander and Intesa Sanpaolo. Earlier this month, Intel announced it would be closing part of its Jerusalem facility, and consolidate the workers in its Kiryat Gat plant. Intel is in the process of upgrading that facility as part of a $6 billion investment which includes significant government grants and tax breaks. As part of the deal, Intel vowed to increase employment at the facility by 1,000. The company says it has every intention to fulfill its obligations to the government.

[sharethis-inline-buttons]

May 30, 2016 | Technology research company Gartner has released its annual “Cool Vendors” list, which a record 35 Israeli companies. By comparison, 15 Israeli startups made the list in both 2014 and 2015. Among the 35 Israeli companies on the list, 15 come from the field of cybersecurity, in which Israel is a recognized world leader. In the Digital Workplace Security category Israeli startups took all five places.

Four Israeli companies represent the field of telecommunications. Also nomination was received by the company in the areas of medical technologies, CRM (corporate program to work with clients, analysts, the three-dimensional printing, etc.

The complete list of the 35 Israeli companies to be included as Gartner 2016 Cool Vendors are:
Deep Instinct, Secupi, Ensilo, Fireglass, Javelin Networks, Morphisec, SecDo, Forter, Fortscale, Avanan, Cymmetria, MinerEye, Team8 Industrial, Secret double octopus, Dojo Labs, CellMining, Cellwize, Saguna Networks, Leadspace, Hyperactivate, Datorama, SparkBeyond, Signals Group, Idomoo, CallVU, BigPanda, CloudEndure, velostrata Treato, Gameffective, Freightos, MASSIVit 3D, Nanodimension, Anodot

[sharethis-inline-buttons]

May 29, 2016 | A new Center for Quantum Science Matter and Engineering, the first of its kind, will be inaugurated at a major international symposium, the Mark and Diane Seiden International Symposium on Quantum Science Matter and Engineering, to be held at the Technion on June 1 and 2.  Twelve leading international scientists together with experts from the Technion and the Weizmann Institute will participate in this special event. Activities in the new Technion center will concentrate on merging the fundamental concepts of quantum science with engineering principles in order to pave the way towards new devices and systems which will lead, within a few years, to practical quantum applications. The new center will focus on the quantum aspects of computing, communications, sensing and signal processing. The field of sensing will receive special attention because of its widespread applied implications in all spheres of life.

[sharethis-inline-buttons]

May 29, 2016 | Israeli startup Sensifree, which is developing low power, contact free, electromagnetic sensors that accurately collect a range of continuous biometric data without the need to touch the human body, has completed a $5 million Series A financing round. TransLink Capital led the investment with participation from existing and new investors, including UMC Capital, a subsidiary of United Microelectronics Corp. and an undisclosed strategic investor. The investment adds to seed investment made by Samsung’s Catalyst fund and brings Sensifree’s total funding since launching its revolutionary RF-based biometric sensor technology to $7 million. The funding will help the company aggressively expand its engineering and product development teams, and accelerate its business development efforts. With offices in Petah Tikva and Cupertino California, Sensifree was founded by CEO Eran Agmon and CTO Ilan Barak. The Company’s first product is a contactless heart rate sensor for wearable devices for applications such as traditional watches, fitness trackers and smart clothing.

[sharethis-inline-buttons]

 May 29, 2016 | Two months after launching direct flights between Tel Aviv and San Francisco, United Airlines today announced that it was increasing the frequency of its flights on the route from three a week to one per day. Daily flights will begin on October 8, 2016 on Boeing 787 Dreamliners. The model is made out of lightweight materials that make it possible to fly faster, with passengers enjoying larger windows and better ventilation on the planes. The decision to add flights on the San Francisco route was a response to strong demand for the route among consumers during the few months since it was launched. The additional flights will operate according to the same timetable as that of the existing flights.

[sharethis-inline-buttons]

May 29, 2016 | Israeli startup Zebra Medical Vision has raised $12 million in a financing round led by Utah-based healthcare provider Intermountain Healthcare, with the participation of existing investors.  The round brings their total funding to $20 million following an $8 million round in April 2015. Intermountain plans to work with Zebra to accelerate the creation of imaging algorithms to improve patient care and help doctors better diagnose diseases. Zebra Medical, founded in 2014 by Eyal Toledano, Eyal Gura and Elad Benjamin, seeks to teach computers to automatically read and diagnose medical imaging data. Its analytics engine helps physicians and healthcare providers analyze millions of imaging records. Current algorithms are in the fields of bone health, cardiovascular analysis, liver and lung indications.

 

[sharethis-inline-buttons]

|May 26, 2016 | Online alternative investment startup Invest.com has raised $20 million in a financing round from a number of global investors including Moshe Hogeg’s venture capital fund Singulariteam. Invest.com also announced the launch of its “hedge fund for the people,” which it says will challenge the “elitist” alternative investments industry. For the time being the fund will operate in the UK with investments starting from £500 including CFD investments. Invest.com first made headlines in 2014 when it paid $5 million for its domain name. Invest.com says it charges a 1.5% management fee and 15% of profit but as an opening offer until June 22 no management fee will be charged.

[sharethis-inline-buttons]

May 26, 2016 | Israeli video-messaging startup Glide has raised an $8 million round of “bridge financing,” which was structured as convertible debt, the company’s CEO Ari Roisman told “Business Insider.” The investment came from a “syndicate of new strategic investors” with participation from all Series B investors – Menlo Ventures, Marker LLC, and Two Sigma Ventures. The Jerusalem-based startup also recently laid off 25% of employees in order to focus on smartwatches, “Business Insider” adds. Glide was founded in 2012 by Roisman, Jonathan Caras and Adam Korbl and has raised $36.5 million to date, including the latest financing. In 2013, the company launched the Glide app in 2013, which allows users to quickly send short video messages to friends, in a similar way to which text messages work. The free app has been downloaded “tens of millions” of times, resulting in “billions of messages” being sent.

[sharethis-inline-buttons]

 May 26, 2016 | Israeli cyber security company Demisto has raised $6 million in a Series A financing round from Accel, Cylance CEO Stuart McClure, Lookout CTO Kevin Mahaffey and Blue Coat Systems president Mike Fey. The new funding will be used to expand sales and marketing efforts, and to grow partner ecosystem integrations. The company also announced the availability of its Demisto Enterprise security bot. With offices in Tel Aviv and Cupertino, California, Demisto was founded in July 2015 by CEO Slavik Markovich (formerly of Intel Security, McAfee and co-founder and CTO of Sentrigo), VP marketing Rishi Bhargava (formerly of Intel Security, McAfee and Solidcore); VP products, Dan Sarel (formerly of Intel Security, McAfee, Sentrigo and Check Point); and VP engineering, Guy Rinat (formerly of Intel Security, McAfee and Sentrigo).

[sharethis-inline-buttons]