News Briefs

January 21, 2016 | Israeli vendor review platform eRated has raised $1.7 million in a seed round, led by Spinach Angels with participation from Techstars and UK angel investors. Founded in 2013 by Boaz Cohen (CEO), Dan Benjamin (Head of Biz Dev), Yoav Artzi (Head of Product), eRated creates a single identity for e-commerce sites, allowing online buyers and sellers to utilize their already existing reputation everywhere they go. eRated’s solution enables e-commerce vendors to leverage existing web profiles, building their online businesses faster and more profitably. According to the company, eRated has so far helped 17 online marketplaces sellers boost sales an average of 56% per profile – including global marketplaces such as TripDa.

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January 20, 2016 | Israeli startup MyState has raised $6.5 million (from unnamed private investors) for its mobile app that shows users whether their contacts are available to speak. Launching today for iOS and Android, MyState provides what is essentially a smarter contacts book, with icons next to each contact displaying his or her live status. Other features on Android include the ability to see if a contact is on a call, if a phone is set on silent or vibrate, or if a phone has a low battery. The Tel Aviv-based startup says it’s planning on bringing these features to iOS as well. MyState was founded by a group of serial entrepreneurs including Zvika Starkman, MyState’s CMO, who was previously the CEO of Focal-Info, a web analytics company that was acquired by Verint Systems. Media reports believe that the newly raised capital will be used to develop the startup’s B2B business model, which will include integration with call centers for “optimising communication” with customers.

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January 20, 2016 | Israeli founded Mellanox Technologies has confirmed its plans to complete the $811 million merger with Israel’s EZchip in the second half of February. The two semiconductor companies have received the necessary votes of approval from shareholders. Mellanox president and CEO Eyal Waldman said, “This acquisition will enhance our scale and profitability by broadening the Mellanox product portfolio, add critical embedded processing intellectual property and know-how to our capabilities and significantly expand our market reach and customer relationships. With the combination of our teams, technologies and products, Mellanox and EZchip together will be in an excellent positon to capitalize on the substantial opportunity for Intelligent Networking, and deliver significant benefits to shareholders, data center customers and employees of the combined company.”

 

Following completion of the transaction, Mellanox intends to integrate employees from both organizations and retain both companies’ existing product lines, which will ensure continuity for customers and partners of both companies.

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January 20, 2016 | Israeli video intelligence startup viisights has raised $1.2 million in seed funding from TheTime, Maxfield Capital, ASF Ventures and LETA Capital. Founded in 2014 and led by Co-Founder and CEO Asaf Birenzvieg, the Tel Aviv-based startup will use the funds to enhance its core technology and for team expansion. A one-stop shop for video metadata and user-profile management, viisights has developed an intelligence platform that provides data as a service (DAAS) analytics solutions for content discovery, brand safety and targeted advertising.

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January 19, 2015 | Israeli IoT startup Neura has raised $11 million in their Series A round of funding led by AXA Strategic Ventures and Pitango Venture Capital, with participation from Lenovo Group.  Led by Co-Founder and CEO Gilad Meiri, Neura has developed a platform that helps users personalize their connected devices while guarding their data. Their app and software development kit can currently be integrated with more than 55 devices and software channels, and will enable what it calls the ‘personalization of the Internet of Things.’ Neura’s technology is “a big step towards a world where devices not only connect to each other, but adapt themselves to users and their habits,” Peter Hortensius, Lenovo’s CTO, said on Monday.

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January 18, 2016 | Semiconductor startup MultiPhy has raised  $17 million in a new round of funding and formed a strategic alliance with Semtech Corp. The investment will help Multiphy to develop the next generation of its flagship solution FlexPhy IC, a chipset which supports data centers by transmitting information at faster speeds. Semtech will help market FlexPhy and take a major stake in the company. Though Multiphy did not announce which investors participated in this round, previous investors include, include Carmel Ventures, Maayan Ventures, Vertex Ventures and Ransomshire Associates. Founded in 2007 by CTO Dan Sadot, MultiPhy has become well known for developing chipsets that support 100G Ethernet optical transceivers in data centers, especially important for heavy data applications such as video streaming.

 

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January 18, 2016 | Public transportation app Moovit announced the release of version 4.8 which will include live updates on city-wide bicycle sharing programs. Users can now use the app to locate the nearest bicycle station and find out if there is an available bicycle or space to return a bicycle in use. Cycle information will be available in New York, San Francisco, London, Paris, Berlin, Rome, Tel Aviv, among 110 cities worldwide. Founded in 2011 and run by Co-Founder and CEO Nir Erez, Moovit has already raised $81.5 million in funding from the likes of BRM Capital, Sequoia Capital, Nokia Growth Partners and Gemini Israel.

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January 17, 2016 | Israeli startup Bringg has raised $5 million in their Series A to develop their on-demand platform that will enable businesses to offer delivery services of the likes of Amazon and Uber. The funding will be used to grow Bringg’s 18-person team in New York and Tel Aviv, strengthen product development with new features such as integration with mobile on-demand ordering systems, and to expand the company’s marketing and sales force to better target larger organizations. Founded in 2013 by Raanan Cohen (CEO), the former founder and CEO of MobileMax; and Lior Sion (CTO), previously the CTO of GetTaxi and Clarizen.com, Bringg offers a web and mobile platform for businesses to provide on-demand services; features of their infrastructure include real-time driver tracking, dispatching, alerting, mobile messaging, and ETA alerts. Since its product launch in 2015, the startup has on-boarded hundreds of customers in over 50 countries, including 12 enterprise customers businesses (business with an established delivery service relying on more than 1,000 drivers). Including this round, Bringg has raised $7.5 million to date from unnamed investors.

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January 15, 2016 | A new ALS treatment utilizing a stem cell infusion protocol performed at Hadassah Medical Organization (HMO) and developed by the US/Israeli biotech company BrainStorm Cell Therapeutics has significantly slowed the progression of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease). “In the clinical trial of intrathecal infusion of stem cells there were no major adverse effects, and close to 90% of patients showed slowing in the progression of disease, as measured by their respiratory function or their general motor disability” said Principal Investigator Dr. Dimitrios Karussis, MD, PhD, Sr. Neurologist, Head of Multiple Sclerosis Center at HMO. These clinical trials, which began in 2011, utilized an innovative adult stem cell self-transplantation treatment involving the harvesting of stem cells from the patient’s bone marrow, their culture and enhancement using Brainstorm’s patented protocol NurOwn® and their injection into the patient’s cerebrospinal fluid by a technique that was developed and proposed by the Hadassah investigators. A Phase 2, double blind, study is running currently, at Mayo Clinic, Massachusetts General Hospital and University of Massachusetts Memorial Medical Center, using a treatment protocol identical to the aforementioned trial.

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January 15, 2016 | Israeli analytics company Trendit has raised £4 million at a modest valuation of £12 million in an IPO on London’s AIM market. Founded in 2008 by  Dr. Erez Weinroth, Trendit analyzes mass behavior based on users’  cellular signals. Shopping malls, for example, could use the technology to monitor visitor volume, stay times, and socioeconomic status gathered through the cellular signals of visitors’ mobile devices. The company’s software has been implemented in 30 projects across the world for governing bodies building a “Smart City”, law enforcement, human resources, and intelligence agencies.

 

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January 15, 2015 | Israel’s National Cyber Bureau of the Prime Minister’s Office and the Foreign Trade Administration of the Ministry of Economy and Industry confirmed their support in a new consortium of Israeli companies to provide cyber solutions for the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics. Led by Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), the consortium will also include Check Point, Verint, Bynet, ClearSk, CyberX, and ECI Telecom. As part of its effort to support the initiative, the state will pay half of the conglomerated companies’ financial costs in their attempt to enter the Japanese market a figure estimated at several millions of shekels. The Ministry of Economy said professional cooperation between the 7 firms will allow them to prove their wide-range of capabilities in end-to-end solutions for the cyber threats Japanese authorities will face in the run up the Olympic Games in four years.

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January 14 2016| Israeli data recovery startup Zerto has raised $50 million in a Series E round led by US fund IVP. The round also included participation from all current investors: 83North, Battery Ventures, Harmony Partners, RTP Ventures, U.S. Venture Partners and Mark Leslie who also serves on Zerto’s Board of Directors. When the current round is completed, Zerto will have raised more than $110 million, enabling the company to expand its already 2,200-strong customer base and continue its growth in revenue (the company has annual revenue growth of over 100% for the past four years). Founded by brothers Ziv Kedem (CEO) and Oded Kedem (CTO) in 2009, Zerto has developed a solution for data recovery and migration for enterprises. The Kedems previously founded data protection company Kashya, which EMC purchased in 2006 for $153 million.

 

 

 

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January 14, 2016 | Cybertech, the world’s second largest cyber event, will take place for the third time in Tel Aviv on January 26-27 in Tel Aviv. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who founded the Israel National Cyber Bureau in the Prime Minister’s Office, will open the conference and other speakers include US Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, CyberArk Software Founder and CEO Udi Mokady, as well as senior executives from HP and IBM. The conference will bring together investors, entrepreneurs, and over 250 cyber security companies, 100 of which are Israeli startups competing in the CyBox competition for the most innovation company.

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January 14, 2016 | Israeli flash storage startup Elastifile has raised $35 million in a Series B round of financing. Six data center and server industry leaders have joined existing investors Battery Ventures and Lightspeed Ventures as strategic investors in the second round. Founded in 2013 by serial entrepreneurs CEO Amir Aharoni, CTO Shahar Frank, and VP R&D Roni Luxenburg, Elastifile has developed an all-flash, software-defined storage solution for enterprises. Based in Herzliya, the company has so far raised a total of $44 million.

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January 14, 2016 | Israeli startup V-Wave raked in $28 million in Series B financing for its implantable device for heart failure. New investors such as Johnson & Johnson’s venture capital arm, TriVentures, Pura Vida Investments and BioStar Ventures, as well as existing investors including BRM Group, Pontifax and Edwards Lifesciences participated in the round, which will help the company through the process of gaining regulatory approvals and initial commercialization in the US. Founded in 2010 and led by CEO Neal Eigler, V-Wave has developed a valve made from porcine tissue, which pushed excess blood away from the left ventricle (the heart’s main pump), to regulate pressure and prevent blood clots in patients.

 

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