News Briefs

December 8, 2015 | TowerJazz Panasonic Semiconductor Company, a joint venture between Israeli Tower Semiconductor and Japanese electronic giant Panasonic, has secured a five year loan from leading Japanese banks, Mitsui Leasing, Sumitomo Mitsui, and Showa Leasing. The long-term loan is valued at 8.5 billion Japanese Yen (approximately $70 million) and is in addition to the initial 8.8 billion Japanese Yen loan, which will be repaid commencing in 2016. Founded in 1993 and run by CEO Eyal Yitzhar, Tower Semiconductor develops and manufactures high dynamic range image sensors (CIS and CCD), integrated power devices (BCD, SOI, and LDMOS) and high frequency silicon RFCMOS.

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December 8, 2015 | Carbonated drink developer SodaStream will begin trading on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange. Though founded in 1903 in Israel, the company currently trades on the Nasdaq and Frankfurt Stock Exchange. SodaStream CEO Daniel Birnbaum said, “This is a natural but exciting step and we are glad to be contributing to the strengthening of the Israeli economy.”

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December 8, 2015 | Pristine Sun of San Francisco has been selected by the BIRD energy program to receive funding in partnership with Jerusalem-based Solaris Synergy to further their ongoing efforts to develop floating solar technology. BIRD is a $5.1 million fund jointly funded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and Israel’s Ministry of National Infrastructure, Energy and Water Resources (MIEW) to finance sustainable energy project partnerships between the two countries.

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December 7, 2015 | Israel has the highest number per capita of recipients of European Research Council grants for young researchers, according to the Science, Technology and Space Ministry. A total of 24 research grants were awarded to young Israeli researchers (with 2-7 years of experience since completion of their PhDs). Israel’s participation in the ERC’s program ‘New Horizon 2020’ makes it possible for young Israeli researchers to compete for grants alongside their European counterparts. Researchers from Tel Aviv University received the most grants with eight winners, followed by Hebrew University with five, the Weizmann Institute and Technion-Israel Institute of Technology with four each and the University of Haifa, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and Bar-Ilan University with one each.

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December 7, 2015 | Appcircus, the discovery arm of the Mobile World Congress (MWC), will hold their first pitch contest in Tel Aviv on January 13, 2016. Ten apps will be chosen to pitch, and the winner will be invited to the MWC in Barcelona, one of the world’s largest mobile events, attracting annually 80-90,000 people, including the leading mobile operators, device manufacturers, technology providers, vendors, and content owners.

 

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December 6, 2015 | FLIR Systems has agreed to acquire DVTEL, a developer of software and hardware technologies for advanced video surveillance, for an undisclosed amount. According to a Calcalist report, FLIR paid $92 million for DVTEL. DVTEL was founded in 2000 by Israeli Yaron Eitan and is headquartered in the US, with many R&D employees based in Israel. FLIR is based in Wilsonville, Oregon.

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December 6, 2015 | Israeli advertising technology company Inneractive is expanding into Europe: The company announced it is investing 500,000 pounds in a new London office. The new branch joins locations in Israel, New York and San Francisco. Founded in 2007 by CEO Ziv Elul and president Offer Yehudai, Inneractive was initially an advertising solution for mobile apps, but later pivoted to offer an independent trading exchange for video advertising and content-based (native) advertising spaces.

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December 6, 2015 | uMake, an Israeli developer of a 3D sketching app, has raised $5.2 million in a private financing round led by Blue Run Ventures. Founded by Evi Meyer and Erik Sapir in 2014, uMake has created an app that’s built for a tablet’s touch experience. It helps designers sketch and present ideas, using an interactive 3D canvas.

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December 3, 2015 | Microsoft is discontinuing its development in Israel of the HoloLens, an augmented reality (AR) headset, and will move its R&D of the product to the US. Microsoft will let go of 30 employees in Israel and an additional 30 subcontractors. The Israeli team that developed the HoloLens technology came to the software giant from 3DV Systems, which was acquired by Elron Electronic Industries in 2009 for about $34 million.

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December 3, 2015 | Israeli company Tomedes will translate YouTube videos along with other two translation services that YouTube will offer its content creators. Services will be available for the title, description, and subtitles in the 76 languages that YouTube supports. More than 60% of video viewership comes from outside the country in which it was created, and despite the growing competition from Facebook, YouTube is still the largest video platform in the world, with more than a billion users and an increasingly rapid upload rate.

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December 3, 2015 | The Israeli Ministry of Economy is leading a delegation of Israeli companies to Japan and South Korea to meet advertising executives from Hyundai, Yahoo Japan, Samsung and other large advertising agencies. Israeli companies, including, ironSource, Similarweb, Datorama, and AppsFlyer, will present advanced solutions for digital advertising.

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December 3, 2015 | Credithood has been awarded the “IATI & MasterCard Israel Technology Innovation Award. The startup  will receive a US$ 25,000 cash prize and a chance to enroll in Citi’s Tel Aviv Accelerator and in MasterCard Start Path Tel Aviv. Founded last year, by Maya Komerov (CEO) and Jack Elad (Chairman), Credithood developed a solution to help small business gain access to financing at lower costs than tradition lenders.

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December 3, 2015 | The Israeli Ministry of Science, Technology and Space announced that it will partner with the UK Government’s Science and Innovation Network on a new set of Researcher Exchange Programs, doubling the number of scientists reached for the next four years. These programs will enable hundreds of British and Israeli researchers to work together on water science, agri-sciences, nanoscience and neuroscience. Over the past few years, Israel and the UK have developed a close relationship in the domain of technology transfer, both through the UK Israel Tech Hub, and the British Council which has raised £10 million for its BIRAX program in which researchers from both countries are partnering in research to tackle the world’s most challenging diseases including cardiovascular and liver disease, diabetes and Parkinson’s. To date the British Council has raised over £10 million for BIRAX.

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December 2, 2015 | Israeli co-working space company Mindspace will open two new branches in Berlin and Hamburg in 2016. Led by CEO Dan Zakai, Mindspace offers flexible-contract workspaces for entrepreneurs, freelancers, startups, designers, small and medium companies. Members also benefit from communal lounges, coffee bars, and onsite IT Service Mangers to resolve technical issues.

 

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December 2, 2015 | Israeli startup Cellwize, which provides mobile network operators optimization tools, has raised $14.5 million in a Series A round of financing led by Carmel Ventures and Vintage Investment Partners. In addition, Viola Credit, part of the Viola Group (Carmel Venture’s parent company), granted a $10 million credit facility to Cellwize. The funding will be used to accelerate the company’s product development, market deployment, and increase the company’s presence in global markets. Founded in 2012 and led by CEO Ofir Zemer, Cellwize has developed a proprietary platform, elastic-SON (Self Organizing Networks), which helps mobile network operators resolve peak network demand, improve performance and reduce operating expenses.

 

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