November 19, 2014 | The Israeli company Efranat, which has developed a cancer treatment, raised $4.5 million from Battery Ventures and others. The company’s cancer treatment, which is currently undergoing trials, makes use of the controversial substance GcMAF, which was touted by an American professor as a substance that could ‘completely heal’ cancer, research that has since been discredited by a number of medical institutions. Efranat hopes to show that GCMAF can indeed be used to treat and even cure cancer, conducting tests on animals (dogs to be specific) and humans that have proven successful thus far. Following the trials, Efranat hopes to market the treatment as technology that engages the patient’s own immune system to fend off cancer.
News Briefs
Efranat Raises $4.5M To Continue Trials On GcMAF Cancer Drug
Former Blackberry CEO Heins Appointed Powermat CEO, Chairman
November 19, 2014 | The shareholders in the Israeli wireless charging company Powermat appointed former Blackberry CEO Thorsten Heins to the position of CEO and chairman of the board. Heins will take over former CEO Ran Poliakine’s position, who will remain in the company in the position of deputy chairman. Powermat shareholders hope Heins will be able to expand the company’s global presence, with their wireless charging technology already launched in 200 California branches of the Starbucks coffee chain. Powermat was founded in 2006 by Poliakine and Amir Ben-Shalom, and the company’s headquarters are in Neve Ilan, Israel.
Viber Releases New ‘Public Chats’ Feature To Tap Into Celebrity Messages
November 18, 2014 | Viber, an application offering free messaging and Internet calls, announced a new feature called Public Chats, allowing users to share and interact with conversations, communities, and content. The Public Chats feature will be live conversations between celebrities and other public figures that Viber users can choose to follow, giving them the chance to tap into live conversations in real time. In addition, users can invite friends to follow a Public Chat that can contain not only text, but also images, audio, stickers, web links and more. For the Public Chat launch, celebrities like Perez Hilton, Pixie Lott, DJ Paul van Dyk and more will participate, with the most popular Public Chats to be featured in the section’s homepage. Viber was founded in 2010 and is a Rakuten Group company.
Outbrain Signs Content Recommendation Deal With Time
November 18, 2014 | The content recommendation company Outbrain signed an exclusive multi-year agreement with the US media giant Time. Time will use Outbrain’s services to enhance its digital publication by suggesting content that may be suitable for its global readership. According to reports, the partnership between the company is expected to generate $100 million in revenue for Time over the entire course of the agreement. Outbrain, for its part, will provide Time with tools to pair editorial decision-making with predictive analytics and algorithmically-generated content recommendations. Outbrain was founded in 2006 by CEO Yaron Galai and General Manager Ori Lahav and, according to estimates, had 561 million unique users by September 2014.
Eyeview Raises $15M To Continue Rapid Growth
November 18, 2014 | The personalized video advertising platform Eyeview announced that it raised $15 million from existing investor Marker LLC. According to the company, the funding will be used to accelerate the company’s already rapid growth, and to enhance its digital video personalization technology. Eyeview already has a number of premier Fortune 500 clients including Land Rover, Marriott, P&G and more. In addition, Eyeview added new members to its leadership team: Brian Pozesky was named Chief Marketing Officer and West Naze to Executive Director of CPG Sales. Eyeview was founded in 2007 by Oren Harnevo, Tal Riesenfeld and Gal Barnea, with offices in New York, Chicago, Detroit and Los Angeles.
Report: Sagi To IPO Camden Markets On London’s AIM
November 18, 2014 | According to reports in London’s “Sunday Times,” the Israeli entrepreneur Teddy Sagi is considering an IPO for Camden Markets on the London Stock Exchange (AIM). Sagi bought Camden Market Holdings, including the Stables Market and Camden Lock Market, in March of this year for £400 million ($626.5 million). This past October he purchased another section of the market, Camden Lock and and Buck Street, for £70-90 million ($109.6-$140.9 million), which makes him the owner of the most important four sections of the market. According to the “Sunday Times,” this is the first time that so much of the market has been under the possession of one owner, and now Sagi hopes to add more value to his purchases through the IPO.
Elbit Systems Secures Contract With German Air Force
November 18, 2014 | Elbit Systems, the Israeli defense technology company, was awarded a contract by the German company DIEHL BGT Defense GmbH & Co. KG. As part of the deal, the company will provide their J-MUSIC Multi-Spectral Directed Infrared Counter Measure (DIRCM) systems for the German Air Force. The J-MUSIC systems were designed to protect large military and commercial aircraft by ground to air heat seeking man-portable missiles (MANPADS) and will be incorporated into the company’s DIRCM system. The contract will last one year, and the amount of the deal was not specified. Elbit Systems was founded in 1996 and is headquartered in Haifa, Israel, with a subsidiary in the US.
Mellanox To Take Part In $425M US Gov’t Supercomputer Program
November 18, 2014 | The Israeli provider of Ethernet and InfiniBand computer network switches, Mellanox, has been chosen to become part of a US government program to construct supercomputers. The supercomputers will be used at two of the country’s leading labs, Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The US Department of Energy will allocate up to $425 million for the High Performance Computing project, with the goal, “to advance US leadership in scientific research and promote America’s economic and national security.” As part of the project, Mellanox will work together with IBM and NVIDIA. Mellanox was founded in 1999 by Eyal Waldman, Shani Cohen and Roni Ashuri and has a current market cap of $1.9 billion.
Tel Aviv Team Takes $100K Prize At PayPal, Braintree’s 2014 BattleHack
November 18, 2014 | PayPal and Braintree announced the winner of the $100,000 prize for its 2014 BattleHack series, with the Israeli team from Tel Aviv taking first place. The BattleHack World Finals was a two-day competition held at the PayPal headquarters in Silicon Valley, California in which 14 teams of developers from all over the world competed for the prize money and title. As part of the final competition, competitors were asked to construct an application that would incorporate PayPay, Venmo and Braintree interfaces. The Tel Aviv team took the prize, a team made up of hackers Shai Mishali and Pavel Kaminsky, for their application called AirHop, a collaborative consumption app to share carrier or WiFi access.
Temasek Pledges $5M To Ramot’s Momentum Fund
November 17, 2014 | Ramot, the technology transfer company of Tel Aviv University, entered into a strategic agreement with Temasek, a Singapore-based investment company. The agreement will seek to fund and generate leading ‘commericalization ready’ technologies in fields like engineering, the exact sciences, environment, clean technology, pharmaceuticals and more through the Momentum Fund. Ramot received a $5 million commitment from Temasek, which is the second lead investment in the Momentum Fund together with Tata, bringing investments to a total of $23.5 million.
CyberArk’s Share Price Spikes Following Q3/2014 Results
November 17, 2014 | The Israeli cyber security company CyberArk, which recently went public on NASDAQ, saw positive results in the third financial quarter. The company has seen its share price nearly triple since it went public in September, from $16 per share to $44.37, giving CyberArk a market cap of $384.16 million. CyberArk reported $28 million in revenue in the third quarter of 2014, up from $16.9 million in the corresponding quarter of 2013. CyberArk focuses on privileged account security and was founded in 1999 by CEO Udi Mokady and Alon N. Cohen.
EnStorage Signs R&D Agreements With International Energy Cos.
November 16, 2014 | The Israeli renewable energy storage company EnStorage signed an R&D agreement with the international energy management company Schneider Electric and Areva, a French energy corporation. The companies will work together to develop a renewable energy storage system that will potentially be sold in 135 countries worldwide. The system will allow for energy manufacturers, wind farmers, and renewable energy manufacturers to store up from 150 kilowatts up to many megawatts of power. According to reports, the system will be built in late 2015 and will be sold end users by late 2016.
Microsoft Confirms Aorato Acquisition
November 16, 2014 | Microsoft confirmed reports that that it will purchase Israeli cyber security firm Aorato. While news outlets like the “Wall Street Journal” and others reported that the deal would be closed for $200 million, Microsoft did not reveal the financial details of the agreement. Speaking of the Aorato deal, Takeshi Numoto, Microsoft’s Vice President of Cloud and Enterprise Marketing, said, “We all know corporate security is more important than ever. Nearly every day there are more headlines about breaches, fraud and data loss. Unfortunately, compromised passwords, stolen identities and network intrusion are a fact of life. Companies need new, intelligent solutions to help them adapt and defend themselves inside the network, not just at its edge.” Aorato was founded in 2011 by CEO Idan Plotnik, Michael Dolinsky and Ohad Plotnik.
LogDog App For Android Protects Against Smartphone Hackers
November 16, 2014 | LogDog announced the launch of its anti-hacking service for smartphones, now available to the Android-using public. The app will attempt to protect users’ private online information by sending immediate alerts when there are signs of suspicious activity. The app actively monitors users’ accounts, including Google and Yahoo!, Facebook, Dropbox, Evernote and more. LogDog’s technology hopes to ‘lock’ hackers out of users’ accounts in an attempt to revise the statistic that 1 out of 4 online accounts are hacked at some point. LogDog was founded by CEO Uri Brison and is now available for download in the Google Play store.
NeuroDerm Raises $45M In NASDAQ IPO
November 16, 2014 | The Israeli clinical stage pharmaceutical company that develops drugs to treat nervous system disorders, NeuroDerm, raised $45 million in a NASDAQ IPO. This is down from estimates assessing that NeuroDerm would raise between $60-82 million in the IPO. However, NeuroDerm began selling his 4,500,000 shares at $10.00 a share. Jefferies LLC and Cowen and Company are the book-running managers for the offering, along with Oppenheimer & Co. and Roth Capital Partners. NeuroDerm has its headquarters in Rehovot, Israel.
