April 13, 2016| Venture capital firm Accel announced the launch of Accel London V; a $500 million fund that will invest primarily in the UK’s start-up community. The fund is intended to “support the next generation of entrepreneurs” across the UK and will also invest in burgeoning business opportunities in Europe and Israel, with a focus on marketplaces, software-as-a-service (SaaS), and next generation infrastructure. Since launching its London office in 2000, Accel has invested in early to growth-stage businesses across 19 countries in a cross-sector of industries including software infrastructure, cloud computing, SaaS, and financial services. The VC firm has participated in a number of major funding rounds in UK start-ups. Accel claims its London team’s investments generated more than $15bn in exit market value in 2015 alone.
News Briefs
Accel Raises $500M For New Venture Fund In Europe & Israel
Israeli eSports Startup Zengaming Raises $2.8M
April 13, 2016| Israeli eSports startup Zengaming announced that it has rained $2.8 million in a round led by Crown Resorts, a leading Australian gaming company. This is the first investment in Zengaming, which has built a network similar to LinkendIn where players can join groups, find sponsors and gain exposure to fans. Also participating in the funding round was 500Startups, iAngels, Foundation Capital, and NFX Guild. Zengaming, which has eight employees, was founded in 2015 and has offices in Tel Aviv and San Francisco.
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Israeli Startup EQUInom Raises $1.25M, Collaborates With Pepsi
April 13, 2016| Israeli startup EQUInom, which utilizes novel computational breeding technologies in the breeding of seeds for the global food industry, has closed a $1.25 million financing round led by Hazera Ltd., a specialist in seed and field crops production. EQUInom has also signed an agreement with Obela, a joint venture of PepsiCo Inc. and Strauss Group Ltd , to cooperate in a breeding program using EQUInom’s proprietary breeding process and technology. The financing will be used to accelerate the company’s plant-protein seed breeding program through bioinformatics, genomics, and phenomics. The company has raised a total of $2.25 million to date including the latest round. EQUInom was founded in 2012 by Dr. Gil Shalev, who serves as CEO of the company. To date, EQUInom has developed varieties of sesame and quinoa that enable farmers to grow the two food crops at greater cost efficiency while enhancing their nutritional value.
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CNN Is First Publisher To Implement “Outbrain For Chat”
April 13, 2016| In partnership with Israeli content marketing startup Outbrain, CNN is the first publisher to implement Outbrain for Chat. Together with Outbrain, CNN is using bots for Facebook Messenger to interact with users in a natural and conversational way. Subscribers to CNN on Messenger will receive a daily digest of top stories right within the Messenger app. The bot will also recommend personalized content based on a user’s preferences and learned interests. The experience gets more personalized with each interaction on Messenger. Launched in March 2016, Outbrain for Chat was developed on top of the Outbrain content discovery platform that serves more than 250 billion recommendations each month. Combining the unique power of its personalization platform with access to a proprietary Editorial Chat Management System or “ECMS”, Outbrain for Chat allows publishers to bring together editorial programming with true content personalization. Outbrain was founded in 2006 by Ori Lahav and Yaron Galai.
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Israeli Waterless Car Cleaning Startup Bonshine, Raises $1.5M
April 12, 2016 | Israeli startup Bonshine, led by former Gett (GetTaxi) CEO David Glatman, has raised $1.5 million from investors Theodore Gur and Alex Nagorski. Glatman himself also took part in the round. The company developed an app for ordering an environmentally-friendly waterless car cleaning. Company representatives arrive to clean the car inside and out, as arranged in advanced and at the requested location. The innovative technique used in the auto cleaning service employs a liquid produced from plants and five types of wax made by Italian company Mafra. The car is polished and covered with a wax layer that protects the paint. The free app provides online updates on the status of the car cleaning and allows payment by credit card, including a tip for the cleaner. The customer can rate the cleaning according to level of service and satisfaction. The service will be operated in Herzliya Pituach in the initial stage, and its extension throughout Israel is scheduled for the coming months. When nationwide deployment is completed, the service will be provided upon request. The service is available during working hours at the usual prices for a car wash NIS 29 for an external cleaning and NIS 50 for cleaning inside and out. Bonshine currently has 40 employees in its offices in Petah Tikva and is looking to expand in Israel and abroad.
Israeli Cyber Security Startup PerimeterX Raises $12M
April 12, 2016 | Israeli cyber security company PerimeterX has raised $12 million. No details were disclosed about the investors. Based in Tel Aviv and San Mateo, California, PerimeterX provides scalable, behavior-based threat protection technology for the web, cloud and mobile. The company today introduced a new security service: PerimeterX Bot Defender, which uses behavioral fingerprinting technology to accurately detect and defend websites from all types of automated attacks. Unlike other security solutions which place a proxy between a customer and a website adding latency and complexity to the network, PerimeterX can detect and stop any automated threats with integration that is as simple as adding a JavaScript tag. PerimeterX was founded in late 2014 by CEO Omri Luz, CTO Ido Safruti and CFO Ophir Ashkenazi, all former executives at mobile app acceleration company Cotendo.
Israeli Chip Design Startup Rocketick Bought For $40M
April 12, 2016 | Israeli chip design startup Rocketick Technologies Ltd. has been acquired by US company Cadence Design Systems Inc. Financial details about the deal were not disclosed but sources close to the deal say that Cadence could be paying up to $40 million. Rocketick helps chip manufacturers reduce the overall time to market of new chip designs by up to 30%. Its flagship product, RocketSim, solves functional verification bottlenecks by complementing simulators with a multicore processor based co-simulator acceleration solution, offering over 10X faster simulations for highly complex designs. The Ramat Gan based Rocketick was founded in 2008 by CEO Uri Tal, CEO & VP R&D Tomer Ben-David, and CTO Shay Mizrachi, who all served in the IDF 8200 Intelligence Unit. Investors in the company include Intel Capital and Nvidia. Rocketick’s 25 employees in Israel will join Cadence’s Israel R&D operations. Cadence has offices in Petah Tikva, Rosh Ha’ayin and Haifa. In 2005, Cadence acquired Israeli electronics design solutions company Verisity for $280 million.
It’s Official: Fosun Buys Ahava For $77M
April 11, 2016 | The Chinese pharmaceutical investment firm Fosun Pharma has officially acquired Israeli Dead Sea cosmetics company Ahava for a total of $77 million. Under the terms of the agreement, Fosun will acquire the holdings from all Ahava’s shareholders including Gaon Holdings, Livnat family, Shamrock Israel Growth Fund Advisors, Kibbutz Mitzpe Shalem, and Kibbutz Kalia. Fosun will wholly own Ahava, which makes skin care products from Dead Sea minerals and mud. Ahava was founded in 1988 and is headquartered in Lod, Israel.
Elbit To Provide Aero-medical Training System To Australian Doctors
April 11, 2016 | Israel’s Elbit Systems Ltd. unit Elbit Systems Australia is to provide a Beechcraft King Air B200 flight simulation and training system for the Australian Royal Flying Doctor Service. The project was announced this week, during New South Wales Premier Mike Baird’s trip to Israel, where he visited Elbit’s “Tzofit” training center in Netanya. This project is an Australian first. It will be the only facility in Australia to provide aero-medical training for pilots as well as medical staff. The flight-training simulator will be installed and operated by Elbit Systems of Australia, based on its integrated solution.
Forbes, JVP Announce Hackathon Winners
April 10, 2016 | Forbes, in partnership with Jerusalem Venture Partners (JVP), announced four winners of a hackathon designed to promote Co-Existence, held on April 7th at the JVP Media Quarter in Jerusalem. More than 150 of the most influential young entrepreneurs from around the world, as well as Israeli and Palestinian innovators, participated in the hackathon, capping off Forbes Under 30 Summit EMEA with a service day in Jerusalem. The winning teams included: Smart Mobility – “Bridging Innovation Through Mobility: Air – The Sky Is Not The Limit;” Bridging Food Through Innovation “Food Compass;” Creating Smart Cities Through Innovation “CityOS;” and Bridging Regions Through Innovation “DataBOX.” Participants of the hackathon were divided into ten teams, under different themes ranging from music, mobility, health, food and sport to smart cities and shared economies. The winners will receive mentoring from JVP and may have the opportunity to present their ideas at the Forbes Under 30 Summit in Boston, October 16-19. Leading local entrepreneurs and mentors coached each team. Judges for the hackathon included Randall Lane, Editor of Forbes magazine; Saul Singer, Co-Author, Start-Up Nation; Paul Steinberg, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer for Motorola Solutions; Professor Yuval Elovici, Director of Deutsche Telekom Laboratories, Ben-Gurion University; Zvi Ginosaur, the Chairman of the Board of Alyn Hospital in Jerusalem; and Fiona Darmon, COO and Partner, Jerusalem Venture Partners.
Karamba Security Raises $2.5M To Fight Car Hacking
April 10, 2016 | Israeli startup Karamba Security has raised $2.5 million in seed funding to bring cybersecurity solutions to the automotive industry. The funding came from YL Ventures and from GlenRock, Leon Recantai’s private investment company. Karamba has built a solution that hardens the externally connected controllers within an automobile against hackers. The typical customer for Karamba is the system manufacturer, who buy those various controllers or systems, that make up the car. The solution can be used to protect both new and existing car models. The new funding will be used mainly for customer engagement. Karamba Security was co-founded in 2015 by Chairman David Barzilai, CEO Ami Dotan, CTO Assaf Harel, and VP R&D Tal Ben David.
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E-commerce Search Startup Twiggle Raises $12.5M
April 7, 2016 | Twiggle, a digital commerce search engine powered by data science, artificial intelligence, and machine learning, has secured $12.5 million. The Series A round for the Israeli startup was led by South African multinational Naspers along with participation from Yahoo Japan, State of Mind Ventures, and Sir Ronald Cohen. Twiggle said in a statement that it intends to use the funds to continue its international expansion and challenge Amazon’s A9 search engine in digital commerce search. Twiggle was founded in 2013 by Dr Amir Kongsberg and Dr Avi Avidor, two former Googlers, and uses AI and machine learning to create better search and product discovery solutions for online commerce. Twiggle previously raised an undisclosed seed round in 2014 while Naspers, the chief investor in this round, has a history of investing in digital commerce such as Flipkart and Tencent.
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Israel And NSW Sign Technological Cooperation Pact
April 7, 2016 | At an official signing ceremony in Tel Aviv this week the government of the Australian State of New South Wales (NSW) and the State of Israel signed a joint industrial R&D agreement. The goal of the agreement is to establish a mechanism of cooperation with parallel funding for companies from both countries conducting joint research and development projects. Under the agreement, Israeli companies will team up with companies from New South Wales (NSW) to co-develop and commercialize innovative products. The companies will receive financial support from both governments. In Israel, support will be granted by the Israel Innovation Authority and in New South Wales participants will be supported by the Department of Industry of NSW through the Office of the Chief Scientist & Engineer. Support will be available to all industry fields, but with a particular emphasis on cyber-security, water management and agricultural technology. The official ceremony was presided over by the Premier of New South Wales (NSW), the Hon. Mike Baird MP, and Mr. Avi Luvton, Asia Pacific Director at the Israel Innovation Authority. The agreement was initiated by the Israel Innovation Authority and the Israel Trade Commission in Australia as part of their efforts to strengthen the R&D cooperation between the two countries. Baird is currently heading a trade mission to Israel, which is focusing on innovation and research. The Premier is accompanied by a senior trade and official delegation, including the NSW Police Commissioner, Andrew Scipione APM, as well as the NSW Chief Scientist and Engineer, Professor Mary O’Kane. The mission was organized by the Australia-Israel Chamber of Commerce (AICC) and the Jewish Board of deputies. The State of NSW represents over 30% of the Australian economy. It is Australia’s most populous state with close to 8 Million residents spread over 800k Sq. Km. NSW has a large and growing domestic market with GDP per capita around $US60,000. The NSW Government is undertaking an ambitious $20 billion infrastructure program as part of the Rebuilding NSW plan with significant investments in transport, roads, water, education, health,
Mobile Network Startup Vasona Raises $14.6M
April 7, 2016 | Israeli mobile network management company Vasona Networks has closed a $14.6 million series C financing round, bringing total funds raised by the company to $48 million. Participants in the funding round include Bessemer Venture Partners, New Venture Partners and NexStar Partners. Founded in 2010, with offices in San Jose, California and Tel Aviv, Vasona Networks provides platforms for mobile network capacity, resource management and edge intelligence. The financing builds on global momentum that has seen the company’s solutions used by tier-one mobile network operators in four of the world’s largest cities, including announced use by Telefónica UK in its London O2 system. The additional venture capital supports these deployments and drives ongoing research and development efforts, such as extension of Vasona Networks’ leadership in the emerging edge computing movement.
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Sweetch Health Raises $3.5M From OurCrowd And Philips
April 7, 2016 | Israeli digital health startup Sweetch Health, which has developed a “digital vaccine” for diabetes, has raised $3.5 million in a Series A round led by OurCrowd, a leading equity crowdfunding platform, and Philips, a leading health technology company. Participation from prior investors also included Pontifax L.P. and Lionbird L.P. Sweetch Health has developed a revolutionary platform that assists in identifying individuals at risk of developing diabetes and coaching to prevent diabetes and other chronic conditions. Current funding will be used to complete a pilot program and clinical trials soon to begin at a major international medical institution and jump start commercialization in the USA. Upon completion, Sweetch will be well positioned to be “prescribed” by medical team personnel worldwide. Sweetch Health was founded in 2013 and is run by CEO Dana Chanan. Headquartered in Jerusalem, OurCrowd was founded in 2012 by Jon Medved.
