News Briefs

January 18, 2015 | The automotive cyber security company TowerSec was named the ‘Hottest Startup in 2015’ at the North American International Auto Show. TowerSec’s ECUSHIELD software has the capabilities to protect cars from potential cyber attacks now and in the future. TowerSec, a company with its research & development branch in Israel, was one of five companies to present their technologies in the automotive industry to conference attendees. TowerSec was founded in 2012 by an Israeli team with a good deal of automotive knowledge and cyber security experience. The company has offices in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Munich, Germany and Tel Aviv, Israel.

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January 15, 2015 | The Israeli platform Windward was awarded the Global Technology Innovation Leader Award by Frost & Sullivan for 2014. Frost & Sullivan, a global growth consulting firm, bestowed the award on Windward for its innovative big data solution for organizing ship and vessel activity across world oceans. Windward’s platform works by collecting data from ships worldwide, about 100,000 data points per day, providing decision-makers and seamen with important insights on what is happening at sea. The technology is mainly used by companies and organizations to track the path of certain ships, but Windward hopes to also provide keen insight to financial markets on larger trading patterns. Windward was founded in 2010 by Matan Peled and Ami Daniel.

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January 15, 2015 | According to a ‘Calcalist’ report, the Israeli startup Behalf signed a cooperation agreement with MasterCard in the United States. As part of the agreement, Behalf’s small business solutions will be marketed as part of MasterCard’s services. Behalf, founded in 2011 by Benjy Feinberg, Shai Feinberg and Jeremy Esekow, provides loans to small businesses, allowing them to purchase inventory and to return the loan at an affordable rate.

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January 15, 2015 | The Israeli food manufacturer Strauss Group announced that it will expand its cooperation with China’s Haier in water purification. Strauss reports that the companies signed a Memorandum of Understanding that will see the reorganization of their business, according to which Strauss will pay Haier NIS 30 million (approx. $7.6 million) for a 34 percent stake in the joint venture, as well as for the licensing to use Strauss-invented water purification technology in their water systems sold in China. The deal to establish a joint venture between the companies was originally signed in 2010, when Strauss signed an agreement with Haier Group to establish a joint water venture, with each of the sides paying $20 million.

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January 15, 2015 | The Israeli smart payments solution Zooz announced that it has hired an additional 100 employees. This triples the amount of employees it has before it began its hiring round, with the company employing 50 today. The majority of new employees have a background in development or marketing, including a new head of R&D and engineers with experience in a number of platforms. Zooz was founded by Ronen Morecki and Oren Levy in 2010 and has its headquarters in Raanana, Israel.

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January 15, 2015 | The Israeli medical startup MediSafe announced that it will relocated its offices to Boston, Massachusetts. The startup, which provides personalized and automated reminders to encourage people to take their medication. The twelve-person company runs an app that is currently used by 1.3 million users worldwide and will begin hiring additional business development staff in the United States. MediSafe recently closed a $6 million funding round, and plans to use the funds to expand its presence in the United States, which has already become the company’s largest market. MediSafe was founded in 2012 by Avichay Nissenbaum.

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January 15, 2015 | The cross-platform messaging app Rounds announced that it raised $12 million from Sequoia Capital, Samsung Ventures and Verizon Ventures, among other investors. According to Sequoia Capital partner Shmil Levy: “We believe the next generation is about instant video chatting and interactivity, and this is exactly what we see in Rounds,” ‘VentureBeat’ reports. In addition to multi-user video chats, Rounds allows users to play games together and share videos with each other. To date, Rounds has raised a total of $10.7 million from investors including Rhodium, Tim Draper and others. Rounds was founded in 2008 and is headquartered in Israel.

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January 15, 2015 | The Israeli public transportation navigation app Moovit confirmed reports that it raised $50 million. As the company’s CEO Nir Erez told ‘VentureBeat,‘ Moovit will use the funds to “refine and expand product features, and to grow our community of users globally.” To date, what the ‘Wall Street Journal’ dubbed the “Waze for public transit” has raised $31.5 million in funding. Interesting investors participated in the company’s Series C round, including BMW i Ventures, Nokia Growth Partners, Keolis, Bernard Arnault Group and Vaizra Investments, together with BRM Capital, Gemini Partners and Sequoia Capital.

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January 14, 2015 | According to a report by IVC Research and KPMG Israel, 12 Israeli venture capital funds raised $914 million in 2014. This is the most raised by an Israeli venture capital fund in six years, with 2014 up 68 percent from $544 million raised by 11 Israeli venture capital funds in 2013. Four veteran Israeli venture capital funds raised more than $100 million each, with Carmel Venture’s fourth fund attracting the largest amount of funds, $194 million. In addition, the average fund size in 2014 reached $76 million, 55 percent higher than 2013’s $49 million average, reflected what IVC experts believe to be the rise of more medium-sized funds with fewer ‘micro’ venture capital funds than previous years.

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January 14, 2015 | A leading Israeli mobile gaming company TabTale announced that it acquired Level Bit, a Serbian computer and mobile gaming company. The acquisition will include Level Bit’s operational aspects, which includes the newest game developed by the company that is set to be released in the second quarter of 2015. To date, Level Bit has developed “Genesis Rising,” Serbia’s largest PC game.”We anticipate this acquisition of Level Bit, famed for its integrated high capabilities of rich content game development, will enhance TabTale’s portfolio of wide audience games, an area that has been growing in the company under the Crazy Labs brand,” says TabTale CEO Sagi Schliesser. TabTale was founded in 2010 and is headquartered in Tel Aviv, with operational apparatuses in the US, China, Serbia, Macedonia, Bulgaria and Ukraine.

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January 14, 2015 | The orthopedic pharmaceutical company PolyPid will revive its NASDAQ IPO, after it called off its previous offer in late 2014. The company published a revised prospectus to raised between $18-22 million, not including the underwriters’ commitment. The company hopes to reach a $80 million valuation in the IPO, with Aegis Capital acting as the chief underwriter along with Chardan Capital and MLV & Co. as secondary underwriters. PolyPid develops and markets a delayed-release treatment for compound bone fractures, which is scheduled to begin clinical trials in 2015, with hopes to enter the European market by 2017.

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January 14, 2015 | The Israeli global software company Perion announced the appointment of two individuals to senior leadership roles. According to the company, Mr. Miki Kolko will serve as the company’s Chief Technology Officer (CTO), the former vice president of data at Perion and LivePerson. In addition, Mr. Shai Gottesdiener was appointed to the position of General Manager of Perion’s B2B mobile unit, the former CTO of Perion who will now focus on the establishment of Grow Mobile, a cross-network advertising service, among other B2B services. Perion was founded in 2000 by cousins Yaron and Ofer Adler.

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January 14, 2015 | The Israeli private investment group Viola Group announced a new platform for sharing content called Viola Notes, a blog that will help others again access to advice provided by the group’s investment professionals. The network, created by an investment group with over $2 billion under its management, hopes to make the investment process more transparent and to generate discussions that will help power tech companies towards growth. The Viola Group itself is complied of three independent venture capital funds: Carmel Ventures, Viola Credit and Viola Private Equity. Viola’s ‘Notes’ platform is aimed at entrepreneurs and business people in Israel and aboard and will be managed by Noya Lizor, the Group’s Director of Content.

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January 14, 2015 | Israel Chemicals (ICL), a multi-national company manufacturing and marketing fertilizers and other special purpose chemical products, announced a new program called ‘Potash for Growth’ in Ethiopia. The program hopes to unlock the potential for agricultural growth in Ethiopia by promoting balanced fertilization among the country’s small and private farmers to increase productivity and economic benefits. The ‘Potash for Growth’ program launched by ICL, in collaboration with its Ethiopian partners, includes a range of activities to increase awareness by Ethiopian farmers of the benefits of potassium fertilizers. A similar ICL program was launched last year in India with much success.

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January 13, 2015 | The first two biotechnology companies have moved into FutuRx, a biotechnology incubator in the Weizmann Science Park in Ness Ziona. The companies, Hepy Biosciences and XoNovo, are developing new approaches and candidate drugs in the fields of oncology and neurodegenerative disease. FutuRx plans to house about 30-40 biotechnology startup companies over the next eight years. The incubator program was founded by OrbiMed Israel Partners, Johnson & Johnson Innovation-JJDC and Takeda Pharmaceutical Company.

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