News Briefs

September 7, 2015 | Tel Aviv University is among the schools with the largest number of alumni working at Google, Inc., according to a Business Insider report. Ranked at No. 20 with 288 alumni, Israel’s TAU is the only university outside the US and the UK on the prestigious list. Topping the list are Stanford University (2,275 alumni), University of California, Berkeley (2,032 alumni), and Carnegie Mellon University (1,180 alumni).

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September 7, 2015 | Technology giant IBM has announced eight newcomers into its startup accelerator in Israel, IBM Alpha Zone. Medical startups Data2Life, Helparound, OBG Soft and Medaware are among the newcomers, as well as Voiceitt, Nutrino, OffLA and TrenDemon. Last year, IBM launched its first ever startup accelerator program – and chose Israel as its base. Alpha Zone offers a 24-week program with access to the company’s cloud infrastructure, development tools and other resources.

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September 6, 2015 | Israeli augmented reality startup Cimagine has partnered with one of UK’s leading retailers, John Lewis, to create a virtual showroom at its flagship store on Oxford Street, London. The retailer also plans to unveil a similar display at its Cambridge Store. Cimagine was founded in 2012 by Amiram Avraham, Ozi Egri, Nir Daube, and CEO Yoni Nevo. It recently received funding from Israeli crowd-funding firm OurCrowd.

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September 6, 2015 | Kronenberger Rosenfeld, a San Francisco-based law firm, announced that it had filed a lawsuit against Israeli mobile navigation company Waze and its acquirer, Google, on behalf of American company PhantomALERT, which developed a GPS navigation technology. The suit alleges that before it was acquired by Google, Waze had copied PhantomALERT’s proprietary database without permission and incorporated it into its mobile apps. The result was an “unjustified and significant monetary gain for Waze, and now Google, which acquired Waze for over $1 billion in 2013,” the suit further alleges. Google and Waze have yet to comment.

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September 6, 2015 |  Israeli specialty flavors and fine ingredients company Frutarom has purchased 79 percent of the shares of Spanish company Nutrafur for $11.5 million (based on a company value of $ 14.5 million) – the company’s tenth acquisition this year. Frutarom is one of the largest flavors companies in the world, and was founded in 1933 by Yehuda Araten and Maurice Gerzon.

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September 3, 2015 | The automobile manufacturer Ford’s developer program announced that it will hold its AppLink Challenge in Tel Aviv. The 24-hour-long hackthon that will take place in Tel Aviv on October 11-12 will challenge Israeli developers of SYNC AppLink to come up with creative and innovative solutions using the platform. The developer teams will be asked to work with Ford’s engineers and business professionals to make their idea applicable concept within the 24-hour period. This is the first AppLink Challenge Ford is hosting in Israel.

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September 3, 2015 | The Israeli biomedical company Mapi Pharma is making its third attempt at an initial public offering on NASDAQ. Mapi Pharma was submitted a prospectus to issue a $57.5 million offering at a currently undetermined company value. The underwriter for the offering is JMP Securities together with secondary underwriters Maxim and MLV. Mapi Pharma creates delayed release drugs and was founded in 2008.

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September 3, 2015 | According to “Globes” reports, the Israeli gaming company TabTale is in the process of acquiring Toca Boca, a Swedish gaming studio worth $60-120 million. Toca Boca, which developed educational applications and games, was recently put on the market by its parent company Bonnier Media Group. TabTale has not responded to the reports. TabTale was founded in 2010 by Sagi Schliesser, Oran Kushnir, and Nir Bejerano.

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September 3, 2015 | The Israeli cyber security company ThetaRay announced the release of new credit risk detection model for online lending banks. The model seeks to help lenders increase revenue by identifying viable loan applications that have been wrongly rejected by the banks’ automated credit risk assessments. ThetaRay was founded in 2013 by Amir Averbuch.

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September 3, 2015 | The Israeli startup Crosswise announced that it raised $3 million in Series A funding. The round was led by Pereg Ventures together with ZhenFund, Emerge and existing investors Giza Venture Capital, OurCrowd and Horizons Ventures. The company will use the funding to expand its international presence and increase sales and marketing efforts. Crosswise is a cross-device identification mapping company that was founded in 2013 by Ron Reiter, Steve Glanz and Jonathan Seidner.

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September 3, 2015 | The 12th annual Africa-Israel Economic Mission is set to take place from September 27-30 in Tel Aviv. The mission brings together African entrepreneurs and investors with their Israeli counterparts. This year the major focus is agribusiness, with the hope that successful Israeli agricultural technology entrepreneurs will share their knowledge with entities across Africa. The mission is supported by the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affair’s Department of International Cooperation (MASHAV) as well as the Center for International Agricultural Development and Institute of Export and International Cooperation of Israel, together with private companies.

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September 3, 2015 | The Israeli Embassy in Ghana has expressed commitments that it will play a key role in the Ghanaian economy, which includes encouraging Israeli companies to invest there. In addition, the Israeli ambassador to Ghana, Avi Mehl stated that in the first quarter of 2016, the Israeli government would begin investing its resources in the Ghanaian economy. Ghana and Israel have a long history of cooperation, with Israel establishing the Ghanaian Air Force in 1959.

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September 2, 2015 | Intel announced the launch of Skylake, a new family of PC microprocessors that were developed in Israel. With hopes to revive the PC market, Intel has introduced Skylake, a processor that promises to provide double the performance, triple the battery life as well as highly-improved graphics. Israel has been an important innovation center for Intel, which has also developed the Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge processors commonly used in today’s computers. Shlomit Weiss, the Vice President of Intel’s Platform Engineering Group, stated that the development is a “game-changer” for the PC market. Intel has a research and development center in Haifa, and produces its chips in Kiryat Gat.

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September 2, 2015 | As part of the Visa Europe Collab, 24 Israeli startups will have the opportunity to pitch their technology to the heads of some of the world’s biggest companies at an event next week. Startups in the fintech, retail, cyber security and tourism sectors will be presented with the chance to present their startup to the heads of some of Europe’s largest communications, technology and tourism companies. The 24 Israeli companies that will present were chosen among 200 applicants and include: Biocatch, Bidflyer, Friend of Fraud, among others. The international companies slated to attend include Orange, KLM and AirBnB.

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September 2, 2015 | HeartWare International announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Valtech Cardio in a share deal. According to reports, Valtech’s shares could be worth as much as $800 million. Valtech develops a number of non-invasive solutions for the treatment of heart conditions. Valtech was founded in 1996 by CEO Yossi Gross and Yiftach Beinart.

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