June 17, 2015 | The advanced payments company SafeCharge won two awards at the annual EGR B2B Awards held at the Tower of London. SafeCharge won ‘Payments company of the year’ as well as the award for ‘Innovations in payments solutions’ at the event. In addition, the company was shortlisted in the ‘Fraud and compliance solution’ category. The ERG B2B Awards are organized annually by the “eGaming Review”, a magazine that reports on online gaming and services companies. SafeCharge was founded in 2007 and employs 350 individuals in its locations in the UK, Cyprus, Bulgaria, Israel, Germany, Austria and Ireland.
News Briefs
June 17, 2015
SafeCharge Takes Two Awards At EGR B2B 2015
June 16, 2015
enSilo Raises $10M In Series A Funding
June 16, 2015 | Cybersecurity startup enSilo announced that it raised $10 million in Series A funding. The round was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners with investment from Carmel Ventures. The company will use the funds to expand its global operations, mainly in the North American market, and to open US offices on the West Coast. enSilo was founded in 2014 and emerged in March 2015 in stealth mode.
June 16, 2015
Mobli Reveals EyeIt, A Search Engine For Images
June 16, 2015 | The photo and video social network Mobli announced the release of EyeIt, an image search engine. According to the company, EyeIt’s technology is able to filter out irrelevant pictures, like selfies, and only display the most valid images for the search words. Mobli was founded in 2010 by Moshe Hogeg.
June 16, 2015
Comverse To Acquire Acision For $210M
June 16, 2015 | The technology company Comverse announced that it will acquire Acision, a mobile messaging and engagement services company, from the United Kingdom. Comverse will reportedly pay $135 million in cash with additional milestone payments of $35 million, and 3.13 million Comverse shares. The deal is valued at $210 million in total. Comverse was founded in 1982 by Kobi Alexander and today is managed by CEO Philippe Tartavull.
June 16, 2015
Arnold Schwarzenegger To Voice Navigation For Waze
June 16, 2015 | The movie star and former governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger announced that he will do the voice-over for Wazes’ navigation instructions. The initiative is a cooperative effort between Waze’s parent company Google and Paramount Studios. According to a “Globes” report, the effort will be completed in mid-July. Waze is a crowdsourced navigation app founded by Uri Levine, Amir Shinar and Ehud Shabtai.
June 16, 2015
Fiat Chrysler Announces Commercialization Of Natural Gas Vehicle
June 16, 2015 | CNH Industrial and Fiat Chrysler announced the commercialization of the first natural gas vehicle on the Israeli market, as part of their cooperation with Israel’s Fuel Choices Initiative. The vehicle in question is a Stralis 4×2 heavy truck from CNH Industrial’s commercial vehicles brand Iveco. It is powered by an Iveco Cursor 8 Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) Euro VI engine. Fuel Choice Initiatives is a ten-year program is managed by the Prime Ministers’ office dedicated to decreasing the world’s dependency on oil for transportation.
June 15, 2015
weBusking Wins Tel Aviv ‘Masters Of Code’
June 15, 2015 | weBusking is the winner of MasterCard’s first “Masters of Code” Tel Aviv Hackathon. weBusking will now join other global finalists at the Grande Finale Masters of Code Hackathon in Silicon Valley, California. weBusking has created a platform that allows street performers to live stream their performances. The company was founded by Max Shakurov and Yuri Friedberg.
June 15, 2015
TAU Student Wins Broadcom Foundation Prize
June 15, 2015 | Tel Aviv University graduate student Benjamin Klein was awarded first place at the Broadcom Foundation University Research Program. Klein was given the award for his project exploring deep learning for which he was awarded $10,000. Klein was selected as the fourth winner of the prize out of 12 university students in the engineering field. Broadcom Foundation’s mission is to advance education in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) by funding research, recognizing scholarship, and increasing opportunity.
June 15, 2015
Hebrew U Researcher Makes Sesame Seed Breakthrough
June 15, 2015 | Dr. Zvi Peleg of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem was awarded the Kaye Innovation Award for his findings to increase the yield of sesame seeds. Dr. Peleg screened some 100,000 strains of sesame seeds to find a particular strain that could enhance yields and seed quality. The Hebrew University has awarded Kaye Innovation awards since 1994.
June 15, 2015
Israel UN Sign Space Tech Agreement
June 15, 2015 | Israeli signed a cooperation agreement with the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) to develop protocols for the use of satellite technology in Earth and Outer Space. The technology will reportedly be used to photograph natural disaster zones as well as for deep space missions in the future. The cooperation agreement was announced at the Committee for Peaceful Uses of Outer Space conference in Vienna, Austria last week.
June 15, 2015
Cisco Israel CEO Appointed To Global Position
June 15, 2015 | Cisco Systems has appointed the CEO of Cisco Israel Boaz Moaz to a senior executive position at the company’s global headquarters. “Globes” reports that it is believed that Maoz will be in charge of strategic initiatives and corporate projects. Maoz has been the CEO of Cisco Israel for six years, managing the company’s 2,000 employees.
June 15, 2015
AVG Establishes Mobile Center Of Excellence In Israel
June 15, 2015 | The Czech security software company AVG announced that it would open a Mobile Center of Excellence in Israel. The global company will launch the office, which will be in charge of AVG’s mobile platforms and development, out of Tel Aviv in the coming weeks. AVG was founded in 1991 and is headed in Israel by Harel Tayeb.
June 14, 2015
Qualcomm Founder Donates $50M To Technion
June 14, 2015 | One of the founders of the global semiconductor company Qualcomm, Andrew Viterbi, stated that he would donate $50 million to the Technion Israel Institute of Technology. According to a report in “TheMarker”, Viterbi will be donating the money to the Technion’s school of electrical engineering, which will bear his name. The Technion believes that the donation will make it possible to hire new academic and research staff as well as to improve the level of teaching. Qualcomm has a very active branch in Israel.
June 14, 2015
Outbrain Introduces New Native Ad Feature
June 14, 2015 | The Israeli content recommendation platform Outbrain announced a new feature that will allow publishers to engage in in-stream advertising. The new feature called Native In-Feed that will deliver native ad campaigns on Outbrain’s existing platform in order to fill up unsold advertising space. Outbrain was founded in 2006 by Yaron Galai and Ori Lahov.
June 14, 2015
Adgorithms Raises $42M On LSE
June 14, 2015 | The Israeli adtech company Adgorithms announced that it raised a total of $42 million at a company value of $127 million on the London Stock Exchange. The company plans to use the funds raised in the offering to expand its presence and to expand the gap between its intelligent advertising solution and its competitors. Adgorithms was founded by Or Shani in 2009.
