News Briefs

December 8, 2014 | Integra Holdings, the biotechnology holding company of Yissum, the technology transfer company of the Hebrew Universtiy, received a $3 million investment from Guangxi Wuzhou Pharmaceutical Group. According to Integra, the funds will be used to advance Integra’s portfolio companies and to create new companies, based on promising projects originating at the Hebrew University. Founded in 2012 by Yissum, Integra has a large portfolio of companies in the biotechnology sector, operating in oncology, Alzheimer’s disease, infectious diseases and more. The transaction between the two companies was made possible by local Chinese contacts at Lakers Holding Group.

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December 8, 2014 | Israel’s MATIMOP and Office of the Chief Scientist recently signed a cooperation agreement with Mexico to fund shared research & development projects between the countries. As part of the agreement, Mexico joined the international cooperation track supported by the Office of the Chief Scientist that will see to the funding of projects as well as shared R&D on joint projects. The countries are likely to cooperation in the sectors of: water treatment, agriculture in arid regions, medicine, medical equipment, electronics and communications. At the beginning of 2015, a general announcement for cooperative efforts between Israeli and Mexican companies will be issued, with the selected projects funded by MATIMOP and the Office of the Chief Scientist.

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December 8, 2014 | The mHealth competition set to be held in Israel this December announced the finalists in its startup competition, with the winner declared at the conference on the 15th. The winner will get funding from the Israeli venture capital firm OurCrowd , as well as services worth $10,000. The members of the judgement panel include representatives from Israel and abroad, including company reps from Microsoft, Walgreens, Sony, Orange and more. The startups that were selected to move on to the final round were: BreezoMeter, Voiceitt, Medivizor, Lifegraph, Myndlift, Sweetch, mPharma and Intendu. mHealth Israel is one of the leading digital medicine conferences in Israel.

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December 8, 2014 | Israel’s Hebrew University of Jerusalem signed a cooperation agreement with Korea University in November. The agreement hopes to promote cooperation between the institutions in several areas, including the exchange of researchers and students, encouraging the sharing of scientific materials, publications and information. The universities will also promote the direct exchange of researchers and students between the institutions. Korea University is added to a list of Hebrew University exchange agreements with institutions in over 43 countries.

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December 8, 2014 | The American information-technology company UST-Global has plans to establish an R&D center in Israel that will train engineers in cyber security, according to a report in “TheMarker.” The statement was reportedly made on Israeli Economy Minister Naftali Bennett’s Facebook page after the cabinet member met with UST CEO Sajan Pillai. UST hopes that the R&D center will train engineers from the peripheral cities in Israel, as well as Hassidic individuals, to become professionals in cyber security in a period of 90 days. Over an allotted period of time, the company hopes to train 10,000 new employees in the cyber security sector, who will staff a potential subsidiary in the South of Israel, making UST the largest foreign employer in Israeli high tech.

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December 8, 2014 | BIRD Energy, the implementation of an agreement between the US Department of Energy and Israel’s Ministry of National Infrastructure, will invest $4 million in five joint American-Israeli projects in the clean energy sector. The entire budget of the five projects taken together is $10.3 million, and the $4 million investment is set to help the projects make progress. The projects that will be funded include the following: Advanced MemTech-Arkema cooperation, Aquanos-Aquagen ISI cooperation, Fridenson Logistics-ChargePoint, NewCO2Fuels-Acumentrics, and Silentium and GE Energy’s cooperation. This is the sixth year that the fund has given aid to joint projects in the energy sector, with over 22 projects approved and a budget of over $18 million.

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December 8, 2014 | Just a few days following the announcement that the Israeli Internet company Conduit would close down its browser development division, the company has announced that it will also close its smartphone lock screen division. The Conduit division called ‘First’ was developing a smartphone lock screen that allowed for updates and news, and the closure comes after attempts to sell the division failed. The First division was launched a little over two years ago and since has worked with a number of Israeli and international content sites to help them create a ‘branded’ smartphone lock screen. Conduit will reportedly now focus its efforts on its Como division, working on creating a platform that will expedite the making of mobile apps. Conduit was founded in 2005 by Ronen Shilo, Dror Erez and Gaby Bilcyzk.

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December 7, 2014 | Tel Aviv University Professor Yossi Matais and the managing director of Google‘s R&D center in Israel was named Vice President of Engineering at the leading Internet company. Matais joined Google 8 years ago in order to establish an R&D center in Tel Aviv and is responsible for merging the separate R&D centers in Israel into one, joint R&D center in Tel Aviv. Today, the Google R&D center in Tel Aviv has hired over 400 engineers, developing leading technologies in the Search, Data Analytics, Gmail and YouTube sectors of the company. Matais also played a key role in founding Google’s Tel Aviv campus, a tech hub supporting the next generation of Israel’s entrepreneurs.

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December 7, 2014 | The Taya Investment Company, the parent company of Taya Communications and one of the owners of Herzliya Studios, will launch a technological incubator in the coming days for video content startups. The new incubator will be called Taya Ventures and will make seed investments in startups, as well as mentor burgeoning entrepreneurs. The incubator is expected to be located in Herzliya Studios, as many technological companies and startups operate in the central Israeli town. One of the partners in Taya Ventures will be Kobi Marenko, the president and cofounder of Taptica, a mobile advertising company that recently sold to Marimedia for $13 million.

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December 7, 2014 | According to a “Globes” report, David Zisser, one of the sons of businessman Motti Zisser, has begun to negotiate a deal to establish a huge conference hotel in Amsterdam. The Israeli business publication reports that Zisser has joined forces with international hotel chain Radisson for the construction of a hotel, office, entertainment and restaurant complex in the Dutch capital of Amsterdam. The hotel will reportedly be managed by Rezidor under the Inn Park brand and will be designed by the Dutch design brand Moooi. The hotel is scheduled to open in 2016 and will reportedly be the largest conference hotel in Amsterdam, with 478 rooms a 4,000 sq. meter conference center, spa and entertainment center. Total investment in the project is estimated at €50 million ($61.4 million).

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December 7, 2014 | At Israel’s Bar-Ilan University this week the Hungarian-Israeli Scientific Society was officially established to promote scientific cooperation between the countries. The key objectives of the society will be to strengthen ties between American and Hungarian researchers and facilitating sharing of knowledge and resources. The initiative was pursued by the Hungarian embassy in Israel. Dr. Tristan Azbej, the Science and Technology Attaché at the Embassy of Hungary outlined some of the activities the Society is planning for 2015, including visits to Israel by key government and science officials from Hungary, participation of delegations of scientists and businesspeople in Israeli conferences, and establishing an alumni organization for Israelis who studied medicine in Hungary.

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December 7, 2014 | The European Patent Office (EPO) signed a Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) pilot program with the Israel Patent Office that will accelerate the treatment of patent applications beginning in 2015. The pilot program will allow for Israeli patent applicants in Europe to fast-track their applications and receive patents more quickly and efficiently. Similar PPH agreements were recently signed with Canada, Mexico and Singapore. “I am very pleased to sign this agreement with the patent office of Israel, another major market for technological innovation,” said EPO President Benoît Battistelli. According to the EPO, in 2013 alone the office received 1,783 patent filings from investors and companies within Israel, with that number significantly increasing in the past year.

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December 7, 2014 | The Israeli video engagement platform, Viewbix, announced that it raised $3 million in funding from new investor 2M Companies, and existing investors Caanan Partners and Longfellow Venture Partners. The latest funding is added on to earlier financing secured from Israeli venture capital fund OurCrowd, reaching a total of $6 million. The company plans to use the funds to accelerate the growth of its interactive video platform, which aims to increase user engagement. In addition, the company will continue developing its analytical and measurement suite, allowing clients to track and optimize video performance. Viewbix was founded in 2011 by Hillel Scheinfeld and Jonathan Stefansky.

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December 7, 2014 | China’s major search engine Baidu has made its first investment in an Israeli startup, investing $3 million in Pixellot. Pixellot has developed a system that uses automatic cameras to scan an entire field or venue at a sporting event. In addition, it provides automatic video production for sporting events for both professional broadcasters and amateur fans. The senior director of corporate development at Baidu, Peter Fang, said on Sunday that Pixellot “will revolutionize video content production” for millions of Internet-users in China. Pixellot, a company run by CEO Ben Khoushy and co-founded by Gal Oz, plans to use the funds to expand its R&D and to advance global marketing and business development.

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December 4, 2014 | The Israeli developer of advanced GI screening system, GI View, announced that it received FDA approval for its Aer-O-Scope Colonscope System. The system is used for the advanced screening of colorectal cancer and will be marketed within the United States in early 2016. “Aer-O-Scope™ provides reliable and safe colorectal cancer screening. It also has the potential to increase the adenoma detection rate and concurrently help to prevent cancer,” said Erwin Santo MD, Head, Department of Gastroenterology and Liver Diseases, Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center and principal investigator of the most recent Aer-O-Scope™ clinical trial. Corectal cancer is the second biggest cause of cancer deaths in many countries in the West, but it can usually be prevented through early detection.

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