News Briefs

March 18, 2015 | Frutarom announced that it has acquired the Belgian flavors company Taiga for $2.9 million. Taiga was founded in 1992 and engages in the development, production and marketing of flavors for the food, beverages and tobacco industries. Frutarom hopes to expand the company’s existing consumer base and to maximize the operational and commercial efficiency of the merger between Taiga and Frutarom’s services. Frutarom was founded in 1933 by Yehuda Araten and Maurice Gerzon and today is one of the ten largest flavor and fragrance companies in the world.

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March 16, 2015 | Some 75 leading female startup entrepreneurs will gather in an undisclosed location in the Arava desert, in the South of Israel for a three-day retreat initiated by Elevation W and the Schusterman Family Foundation. This unique experience is intended to connect and empower talented and ambitious young women from the startup industry. Through this gathering, the organizers aim to have more women at the helm of the technology industry worldwide. The Elevation W project is powered by Schusterman Connection Points, Nielsen Innovate, Start-Up Nation Central and Basis Technology.

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March 16, 2015 | The Israeli furniture production company Paltechnica will close its doors at its Kibbutz Nitzanim headquarters. The company’s 100 employees, 20 of which work at Kibbutz Nitzanism, have been laid off. Paltechnica was established in 1943.

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March 15, 2015 | Israel’s Tel Aviv University was ranked 177th in the world by the Times Higher Education ranking. The university moved up 11 places from last year and beating out the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, which didn’t make the top 200 this year. The results of the Times Higher Education rankings are determined in global surveys by 10,000 senior academics from 142 countries in which they were asked to rank up to ten universities based on their personal experience and knowledge.

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March 15, 2015 | Ashton Kutcher and business partner Guy Oseary will put money into a few fund called Sound Ventures. The pair, who are well-known for their successful careers in the entertainment business, but also their existing investment firm A-Grade Investments, launched the new fund at the South By Southwest tech event in Austin, Texas. Sound Ventures will be a venture capital firm that will invest the money given by backers in up-and-coming startups. According to Kutcher at the SXSW event, the new fund will allow investors more flexibility in which kinds of startups they invest in, be they early or late stage in terms of funding and development.

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March 15, 2015 | After acquiring the Israeli cybersecurity startup CyActive for reported $60 million, the company has decided to a cybersecurity center in Israel. “Located in one of the world’s top cybersecurity hubs, this new security center will allow us to tap into the country’s cutting-edge technology and top cybersecurity talent,” PayPal chief technology officer James Barrese wrote in a blog on the company’s website. The acquisition of CyActive is PayPal’s second acquisition of an Israeli company, after the online payment giant acquired FraudSciences in 2008 for $169 million.

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March 15, 2015 | Some of China and Israel’s largest companies plan to invest over $1 billion in Georgia, the country’s Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili said. According to the PM, Israeli and Chinese companies are interested in the fields of energy, agriculture and information technology (IT). The Chinese company that has been involved in the talks with the Georgian government was PEGASUS EastWest, a Hong Kong-based entity dealing with developing business. In terms of Israeli companies, LR Group attended the meeting, among others.

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March 15, 2015 | Israel Brain Technologies launched “Brainnovations” startup launchpad and “Braingels” angel investor network at the BrainTech 2015 conference held last week in Tel Aviv. The goal of both “Brainnovations” and “Braingels” is to promote and facilitate the creation of startups in the brain technology arena and turn Israel’s neurotech startup ecosystem into a world-leading hub of innovation. With the creation of the Brainnovations Startup Launchpad and Braingels Network, IBT has taken the next step in turning the ‘Startup Nation’ into the ‘Brain Nation,'” said Dr. Rafi Gidron, Founder and Chairman of IBT. Israel Brain Technologies was founded by Amir Konigsberg and Hamutal Meridor.

 

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March 15, 2015 |  Stifel, a subsidiary of the Stifel Financial Corp, commented that the partnership will enable the company to assume a more prominent role in Israel and Leumi Partners, the investment banking arm of Leumi bank, hopes to offer its services overseas. The companies already landed their first deal with the privatization of Israel Military Industries (IMI).

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March 12, 2015 | The Israeli reviews and recommendations platform, Shadow, announced that it raised a $3 million round and will now exit beta testing. Shadow’s platform summarizes different reviews on certain products, services and public figures, pulling the information from sites like Amazon, IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes, Reddit and Pinterest. Shadow previously raised $1.2 million in seed funding. Shadow was founded by Eli Mashiach and Israel Mazin.

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March 12, 2015 | Future Israel, an organization bringing Israeli technological advancement to Britain, announced that 20 Israeli companies qualify to present their technologies at the Future Sport Roadshow. Some of the companies slated to attend are AposTherapy, EveryMatch, FanZone, Gigya and more.

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March 12, 2015 | The Israeli solar energy company SolarEdge announced that it plans to raise between $112- 126 million in its upcoming NASDAQ IPO. The company, which specializes in the optimization and monitoring of solar energy systems, said that it will offer up seven million shares valued between $16-18 at a company value of $609-685 million, after money. SolarEdge was founded in 2006 by CEO and Chairman Guy Sella, Lior Handelsman, Yoav Galin, Meir Adest and Amir Fishelov.

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March 12, 2015 | The camera-based automated driving solution Mobileye will reportedly pair with Valeo of France to launch a state-of-the-art driving assistance program. The companies will combine Mobileye’s EyeQ microprocessors and computer vision algorithms together with Valeo’s driving assistance technology. In addition to improving existing assisted driving technologies, the companies plan to cooperate on innovative automated driving solutions that will combine computer vision with laser scans. Mobileye was founded in 1999 by Ziv Aviram and Amnon Shashua.

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March 12, 2015 | DocuSign announced that it will acquire ARX Digital Signatures for an undisclosed amount. However, according to ‘Globes,’ sources close to the deal believe that DocuSign will pay between $30-50 million for ARX. The acquisition brings a three-year business partnership between the companies to a close, with DocuSign hoping that the acquisition will help expand its global business. ARX was founded in 1987, was acquired by Cylink in 1997 for $83 million, but Cylink did not survive the dot com boom.

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March 12, 2015 | The Israeli company Nova Measuring Instruments announced that it has acquired US company Revera for $46.5 million in a deal that is expected to close by mid-April. Nova is the producer of optical metrology solutions used in the manufacturing of semiconductors. Nova was founded in 1993 and is headquartered in Rehovot, Israel.

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