News Briefs

December 2, 2015 | Israel’s Ministry’s Chief Scientist Avi Hasson signed an agreement with the Commonwealth Bank of Australia to develop joint research and development projects in the area of fintech. The bank is the biggest Australian company to strike a deal with Israel for technology, and the first Australian firm to join the Economy Ministry’s Multinational Corporations (MNC) program, which works with dozens of multination companies to develop new products and technologies in Israel. Under the agreement, the Chief Scientist’s Office will scout Israeli technologies meeting the bank’s needs and provide financial support for R&D.

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December 2, 2015 | Herzliya-based SuperCom, a leading provider of secure solutions for the public safety, health care, and finance sectors, announced that it has been awarded new contracts, totaling approximately $8 million. The Nasdaq company expects to deliver and recognize the full value of the orders during the first half of 2016. Founded in 1988 and led by CEO Arie Trabelsi, SuperCom provides of traditional and digital identity solutions, providing advanced safety, identification and security solutions to governments and organizations, both private and public, throughout the world.

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Dec 2, 2015 | InovGate, the accelerator for Israeli companies looking to break into the Asian market, has launched a $10 million early stage capital fund, which will begin investing in the first quarter of 2016. Founded by Izhar Merhavi and Pnina Eytan, the Singapore-based fund will make investments of $100,000 in exchange for 5% percent equity. The company’s portfolio already include Zoomd, Xpandion, Atrinet, and Magna – 4eyes, all of which participated in InovGate’s 4 month accelerator program, split between Israel and Singapore.

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December 1 2015 | Perion announced today that it has acquired Undertone, a leader in high-impact, cross-screen advertising solutions, for $180 million in total enterprise value. Traded on the Nasdaq and Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, Perion provides online publishers and app developers content monetization tools. Founded in 1999 by cousins Yaron and Ofer Adler, Perion was formerly IncrediMail, an email company, which the Adlers’ co-led until 2010, when current CEO Josef Mandelbaum was appointed. Since then, the company has completed a number of acquisitions, including: photo app Smilebox for $32 million; SweetPacks (aka SweetIM) for approximately $41 million; Conduit’s ClientConnect business in an all-stock transaction valued at $660 million; San Francisco based Grow Mobile; and Paris-based MakeMeReach, a social media advertising platform.

 

 

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December 1, 2015 | Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba has invested $5 million in Israeli cyber security company ThetaRay, Calcalist reports. It is estimated that the Chinese company will participate in a funding round of $ 20 million along with existing investors: General Electric (GE), the venture capital fund Jerusalem Venture Partners (JVP) and Poalim Capital Markets. The report comes after ThetaRay was named ‘Most Innovative Industrial Internet Technology’ at GE’S Minds + Machines 2015 Conference. Founded in 2014 by Prof. Amir Averbuch (Tel-Aviv University) and Prof. Ronald Coifman (Yale), ThetaRay has developed a solution to detect and prevent APT (Advanced Persistent Threat) and zero-day attacks within minutes from the moment they occur.

 

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December 1, 2015 | Following a string of Chinese investments into Israeli companies, Hefei Tianhui Incubator of Technologies (HTIT) has invested $50 million in Israeli biomedical company Oramed in exchange for exclusive rights to market Oramed’s oral insulin capsule, ORMD-0801, in China, Hong Kong and Macau. HTIT is partially owned by Sinopharm Group, the largest pharmaceutical company in China, which currently has the largest population of people living with diabetes. Founded in 2006 and led by CEO Nadav Kidron, Oramed has developed a method for oral delivery of drugs which currently are only administered via injection. The company is traded on the Nasdaq with a current market cap of $89.90M

 

 

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November 30, 2015 | Israel will establish its first diplomatic representative mission in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in the capital Abu Dhabi, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Jerusalem confirmed. The Israeli representative will be attached to the inter-governmental International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). The Israeli mission was approved following intensive diplomatic talks between Israel and the UAE including a visit by Ministry of Foreign Affairs director general Dore Gold to Abu Dhabi last week.

 

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November 30, 2015 | Spaceek, which has developed a system for locating parking spaces based on underground sensors, has completed a $272,000 seed financing round using the ExitValley crowdfunding platform. CEO Oren Ezlam said, “We will use the amount we raised to expand the company’s business to the big cities in Israel, and to prepare for overseas expansion.” Founded in 2013, Spaceek is marketing a municipal parking solution based on sensors embedded underneath parking spaces, which will indicate on an app where parking spaces are available.

 

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Novemeber 30 2015 | Israeli big data behavioral analytics company Clarisite has closed its Series A round of financing at $5.5 million, led by Lazarus Israel Opportunities Fund, a US-based hedge fund. The company also announced the appointment of  CEO Yaron Morgenstern who will lead the company’s international expansion from London. Founded in 2010 by Yoav Schreiber, Yaron Gueta and Hanan Blumstein, Clarisite provides actionable, real-time insights for financial and insurance companies in order to optimize customer experience, enhance customer service, improve regulatory compliance and reduce risk exposure.

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November 302015 | Israeli advertising technology startup Inneractive is on its way to closing a $15-20 million round of financing, reports Globes. Since inception in 2007, the company has raised $11.5 million, not including this round, from Evergreen Venture Partners, Kreos Capital, Israeli businessman Idan Ofer, and others. Founded 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. It is believed that the company’s 2015 revenue will reach $50 million, 150% more than in 2014, a figure that has likely contributed to its 25th rank on Deloitte’s list of Israel’s fastest growing companies. Headquartered in New York, the company operates in Israel, San Francisco, and London, and is likely to open another branch in Asia after this round of funding.

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November 26, 2015 | Israeli pharmaceutical giant Teva and UK-based Heptares Therapeutics, a unit of Sosei Group Corporation, have announced a licensing and drug-discovery agreement under which Teva will receive exclusive global rights to develop, manufacture and commercialize novel, small-molecule calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) antagonists discovered by Heptares for the treatment of migraine headaches. Heptares will receive an upfront payment of $10 million, and will be eligible to receive additional research, development and commercialization milestone payments of up to $400 million. In addition, Heptares will be eligible to receive royalties on net sales of products resulting from the partnership.

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November 26, 2015 | BioLight Life Sciences Investments has entered into a joint financing agreement with two Asia-based venture capital firms to invest a total of $7.2 million into BioLight’s subsidiary, IOPtima. The financing will help IOPtima to continue the global commercialization of its innovative IOPtimate™ system used in the treatment of glaucoma, as well as to initiate a regulatory approval pathway process with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, commencing 2016. Under the terms of the agreement, the unnamed investors and BioLight will invest an aggregate amount of US$6.0 million and US$1.2 million, respectively. The investments are being made on the basis of a US$13.5 million pre-money valuation for IOPtima. Upon completion of the private placement, BioLight will hold approximately 71% of IOPtima’s issued and outstanding shares.

 

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November 25, 2015 | Israeli founded data security firm Fortscale Security has secured $16 million in funding, including investment from CME Ventures and UST Global. The financing will be used to implement sales and marketing campaigns on the back of the successful launch of Fortscale 2.0, the company’s threat detection and remediation solution. Founded in 2012 and led by CEO Idan Tendler, Fortscale enables enterprises to easily run big data analytics for cyber security by delivering risk-prioritized analysis and visualization of user behavior and access activity.

 

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November 25, 2015 | Israeli-founded Zebra Medical Vision announced that they have signed a multi-year agreement with Dell Services to deliver its Clinical Research and Analytics platforms to providers and researchers globally. Zebra Medical has built a medical imaging cloud-based platform that enables healthcare professionals to identify patients at risk of disease. The platform also provides researchers with the largest structured clinical data set globally, and gives them the tools to develop machine learning algorithms to analyze it. Founded in 2014 by Eyal Gura, Eyal Toledano, and Elad Benjamin, the company has so far raised $8 million from Khosla Ventures and Marc Benioff.

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November 25, 2015 | The Israeli data storage startup Iguaz.io today announced a $15 million Series A funding round. Led by Magma Venture Partners, the funding includes additional investments from Jerusalem Venture Partners (JVP) and large strategic investors. Founded by CEO Asaf Somekh and CTO Yaron Haviv in Herzliya, Iguaz.io provides innovative data management and storage solutions for Big Data, IoT and cloud applications.

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