News Briefs

September 29, 2015 | Teva Pharmaceutical Industries will acquire Gecko Health Innovations, a Massachusetts-based producer of smart inhaler technology. Though the financial details of the deal were not disclosed, Gecko is the producer of Teva’s smart inhalers. Gecko’s main product is the CareTRx, a chronic respiratory disease management device that connects to inhalers. Gecko was founded in 2012 by Mark Maalouf, Yechiel Engelhard and Michael Chiu.

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September 29, 2015 | ElastiMed announced that it has raised $1 million in funding. Pix Vine Capital participated in the round. Elastimed is a Trendlines Medical company that is developing a wearable device to treat Chronic Venous Insufficiency and Deep Venous Thrombosis. ElastiMed was founded in 2013 by Omer Zelka and is based out of the Misgav Technological Park in the north of Israel.

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September 29, 2015 | The Chinese pharmaceutical investment firm Fosun Pharma has acquired Israeli Dead Sea cosmetics company Ahava for a total of $77 million. Fosun acquired the controlling stake in Ahava from Gaon Holdings. Ahava was founded in 1988 and is headquartered in Lod, Israel.

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September 29, 2015 | Tel Hai College in Israel and Rutgers University in New Jersey are joining forces to examine medicinal food. The research effort will be conducted from Tel Hai, where foods will be examined to determine if they could be used to treat certain medical conditions, a kind of “incubator” for startups in the food technology space. The research effort is being conducted in part by the New Jersey-Israel Healthy, Functional, and Medical Food Alliance.

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September 29, 2015 | Spondoolies-Tech and BTCS have entered into a definitive merger agreement. The agreement, which has been approved by both companies’ Boards of Directors, will give BTCS shareholders about a 55 percent stake in the shared company and Spondoolies-Tech shareholders a 44 percent stake in the joint company. Spondoolies-Tech was founded in 2013 and manufactures transaction verification servers.

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September 29, 2015 | The Israeli biomedical firm Aposense and the leading international pharmaceutical company Pfizer announced that they would enter into a research agreement. The agreement will see to the technological evaluation of Aposense’s ML-10 molecule that is able to identify apoptosis, a process of programmed cell death. Aposense was founded in 1996 by Ilan Ziv and Yaacov Gotenstein.

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September 29, 2015 | The iAngels platform for equity crowdfunded investment in early-stage startups together with accredited angel investors, announced that its portfolio company Big Blue Parrot has been acquired by gaming company Playtika. This is the first ever exit for an iAngels portfolio company, showing investors returns less than a year after their initial investment. Big Blue Parrot was founded in 2010 by Gilad Almog, Gal Weizenberg and Daniel Rechter. iAngels was founded in 2013 by Shelly Hod and Mor Assia.

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September 29, 2015 | The US cyber security company WatchGuard, based out of Seattle, will establish a sales and support center in Israel. One of the world’s leading cyber security companies, with Frost & Sullivan awarding WatchGuard its New Product Innovation Award this year, WatchGuard hopes to gain access to Israel’s leading cyber security talent. WatchGuard was founded in 1996 and is managed in Israel by Lior Benjamin.

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September 29, 2015 | The Israeli white-label platform for airlines BidFlyer announced that it raised $1 million to push forward its business model. The seed funding round was led by Israeli investor Moshe Hogeg. BidFlyer allows passengers to save by bidding on flights at a lower price than they are listed for on travel websites. BidFlyer was founded in 2014 by CEO Asaf Gendler and CTO Guy Kaplan.

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September 29, 2015 | The Israeli video-sharing platform TVibes announced that it raised $1 million from entrepreneur and producer Damian Collier, together with other private investors. TVibes plans to use the funding to help improve the app’s user experience. Currently, the app is available on iOs, with an Android release planned to take place in the next few months. TVibes was founded in July 2015 by Gilad Carni and Uri Schneider.

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September 29, 2015 | The Israeli clean energy firm NewCO2Fuels announced that it is in final discussions to install its system for converting carbon dioxide into fuel at a coal power plant. Though the company could not be named, minority stakeholder in NewCO2Fuels Greenearth Energy announced that the company in question is a large corporation. More recently, NewCO2Fuels has progressed in the design and development of a large-scale pilot plant. NewCO2Fuels was founded in 2011 as a commercialization of research conducted in Weizmann Institute Prof. Jacob Karni’s laboratory.

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September 29, 2015 | Medtronic, the international medical technology and services company, announced that it has received a grant from the Israeli government to launch a digital medicine incubator in the country. Medtronic will reportedly work together with IBM, Pitango Venture Capital and Rambam Hospital in Haifa to establish an incubator called “HealthO2” that will help digital health companies to receive funding and access. “HealthO2” will offer companies between $500,000-800,000 in initial funding to develop their ideas. Medtronics recently invested $2 million in Israeli company DreaMed Diabetes, acquiring the company’s artificial pancreas technology.

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September 24, 2015 | San Francisco-based Prosper Marketplace, which operates an online marketplace that connects borrowers and investors, has acquired BillGuard, an Israeli personal finance analytics startup. The terms of the deal were not disclosed; however, BillGuard’s price tag is estimated at $40 million. Backed by Israeli crowdfunding firm OurCrowd, BillGuard was founded in 2010 by CEO Yaron Samid and CTO Raphael Ouzan.

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September 24, 2015 | The Israeli Minister of Economy Aryeh Mahlouf Deri has signed a vocational training memorandum with his Chinese counterpart Yin Weimin. The two first met in Jerusalem this week to outline possible joint ventures in the fields of workforce training and knowledge exchange.

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September 24, 2015 | The Welingkar Institute of Management Development and Research (WeSchool) in India has announced a new collaboration with three Israeli universities: Tel-Aviv University, Ben-Gurion University and IDC Herzliya, according to a report by India Education Diary. WeSchool is seeking possibilities to enhance mutual academic exchanges such as exchange of students, research scholars and faculty, exchange of academic information, joint research activities and publications.

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