News Briefs

October 2, 2014 | The cancer and immune-inflammatory treatments developer VBL Therapeutics raised $40 million at a company value of $120 million in a revived NASDAQ IPO. Just this August, the company had raised $65 million at a company value of $222 million, but after a principle US investor couldn’t come through with the money promised, the company was forced to cancel its offering and delist. In this, the latest offering, the company sold over 6 million shares at $6 per share, but by the end of the day the share price had fallen to $5.85. Deutsche Bank Services was the book-running manager for the IPO, together with co-managers JMP Securities and Oppenheimer. VBL Therapeutics was founded in 2000 and is based in Tel Aviv.

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October 1, 2014 | The Israeli marketing data company Datorama closed a $15 million financing round led by Marker LLC, Eric Schmidt’s Innovation Endeavors and Cedar Fund. Datorama has seen extensive growth over the past year and is now able to recruit new partners in just a few hours. In addition, the company serves agencies and brands in the United States, Australia, France, Spain, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Israel and Latin America. Datorama was founded by CEO Ran Sarig, CTO Efi Cohen and Katrin Ribrant.

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October 1, 2014 | One month after the launch of the Uber taxi ordering service in Israel, the Middle East and Asia Head Jambu Palaniappan told “Globes” that, “The Israel launch was one of Uber’s most successful anywhere in the world.” Though it was believed that Uber would face staunch competition from the native taxi-ordering app GetTaxi, Uber has succeeded in winning customers and drivers over in the land of milk and honey. As Palaniappan told “Globes,” Uber soon hopes to expand its services to other major Israeli cities like Jerusalem, and is considering opening uberX in Israel. uberX is the company’s platform that allows private drivers to transport passengers for money.

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October 1, 2014 | 3D printing company Stratasys has inaugurated a new plant in Kiryat Gat, Israel. According to the company, the plant is the most advanced in the world for the manufacture of 3D printers. Stratasys CEO David Reis said that the new plant will hire hundreds of new employees, mainly from southern Israel and the inland coastal region. Founded in 1989, Stratasys is a leading producer of 3D printers based in Rehovot, Israel.

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October 1, 2014 | The big data connectivity provider Mellanox Technologies reports that Yahoo! Japan uses InfiniBand solutions for database acceleration in Japan. According to Mellanox, Yahoo! Japan improved its database performance tenfold, as well as reducing job processing and backup times. Mellanox VP Marketing Kevin Deierling said, “Companies like Yahoo! Japan require best-in-class networking in order to stay competitive. Mellanox’s end-to-end InfiniBand solutions provide the fastest, most reliable, and most efficient interconnect for mission-critical business applications and services. Mellanox was founded in 1999 by Eyal Waldman and Roni Ashuri.

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October 1, 2014 | The Israeli global flavor and ingredients producing company, Frutarom acquired Montana Food for $28 million. Montana Food is the flavors and natural food colors division of the Peruvian company Montana SA. Frutarom will pay $28.5 million in cash and assume the company’s $6.5 million debt as part of the acquisition agreement. Frutarom will also gain control of Montana Food’s operations in Chile. Frutarom was established in 1933 and is one of the top ten companies in the world the in production of flavors and fragrances.

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October 1, 2014 | Wix, the DIY website construction platform, announced the opening of a new development center in the new Be’er Sheva high tech park. The company will begin to hire and train developers for their new development center. In addition, sources informed “Globes” that Wix is planning to open a new development center in Haifa as well. Wix was founded by CEO Avishai Abrahami, Nadav Abrahami, and Giora Kaplan and recently held a NASDAQ IPO, currently trading at a $600 million market cap, the same amount it had in its IPO.

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October 1, 2014 | The Israeli mobile sports application 365Scores raised $5.5 million in investments from LETA Capital, Cedar Fund, Titanium Investments and private investors. 365Scores also announced that their application has exceeded 5 million Android downloads worldwide. 365Scores works by alerting sports fans of the most important moments in their favorite teams and players’ career, sending push notifications to their phones. Just this week, the company launched an Android tablet version which is now available on Google Play. According to the company, the funds will be used to expand the social environment for the millions of sports fans that use the application. 365Scores was founded by CEO Amir Sirkis, VP of Marketing Yevgeny Brener, VP of R&D Roy Hayumi and CTO Roe Aharoni.

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September 29, 2014 | The Israeli venture capital firm Magma Venture Partners announced the closing of a $150 million fund for early stage, Israeli technology companies. Magma, which was also an investor in Waze, the navigation application that sold to Google for $1.3 billion in 2013, plans to invest in seed and Series A funding rounds for approximately 25-30 companies. Each investment in the 25-30 companies, or opportunities, will run anywhere from $500,000 to $6 million. Magma hopes to pump more juice into the local Israeli startup scene, that has seen a lot of local venture capital firms turn elsewhere in recent years. In the year 2013, Israeli venture capital firms raised $526 million, a 27 percent decline from 2012 and a 38 percent drop from 2011, according to IVC.

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September 29, 2014 | The automotive cyber security company Argus announced that raised $4 million in Series A funding in a round led by Magma Venture Partners and Vertex Venture Capital. Argus has created an Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) based on the company’s patent-pending Deep Packet Inspection inspection algorithms to prevent cyber attacks on automobiles. According to the company, the system prevents an automobile’s components from being hacked in real time and is seamlessly integrated into vehicles. The IPS system also generates reports and alerts for the mobile monitoring of a vehicle’s cyber health. Argus was founded by CEO Ofer Ben-Noon and CTO Yaron Galula, gradates of the 8200 IDF Intelligence Unit.

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September 29, 2014 | The Israeli company Eco Wave Power that generates electricity from sea waves took part in the United Nations’ Private Sector Forum on Climate Change. The event, which saw the attendance of nearly 350 companies from all over the world, as well as representatives from governments and civic organizations, was held at the UN Headquarters in New York City. The forum was meant as an opportunity to show governments the progress and commitment being made by private companies to combat climate change and its effects. “Eco Wave Power is confident that wave energy is one of the most significant possibilities for emissions reduction and lowering the worldwide pollution levels and the company presented it during the UN Private Sector Forum to world leaders” said David Leb, founder and CEO of the company. Eco Wave Power is the only wave energy company to ever win the Frost & Sullivan Product Innovation Award.

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September 29, 2014 | The web trading platform PrivatEquity.biz announced that private high tech companies in Israel will be able to sell secondary shares and options in their company. The first secondary market trading platform in Israel, PrivatEquity.biz has created a new model that consists of consistent oversight in terms of prices, quantity, rights and the scheduling of the offering. According to the company, the new model can be joined by mature private high tech companies that have completed at least two rounds of capital raising. Each company will get a secondary market web trading platform, and PrivatEquity.buz has already recruited a long list of investors from both Israel and overseas. PrivatEquity.biz is an online platform that allows individuals to obtain exposure to securities offered by private companies and shareholders like employees, former employees, service providers and founders.

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September 29, 2014 | Protalix Biotherapeutics, a biopharmaceutical company that develops and manufactures recombinant therapeutic proteins, announced that Moshe Manor will be the new President and Chief Executive Officer. The company, which is publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange, announced that Manor will assume his office, taking over from retiring CEO and President David Aviezer, on November 2nd of this year. According to the Chairman of the company’s Board of Directors, “I am delighted that Moshe will be joining us as Chief Executive Officer. He brings extensive knowledge and vast senior experience, both in the generic and the innovative pharmaceutical world, from his years as Executive Vice President at Teva Pharmaceutical Industries.”

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September 29, 2014 | Atox Bio, a clinical stage company developing immuneumodulators for severe infections, announced that it was awarded with a $24 million contract for the development of AB103. According to the company’s reports, Atox Bio was awarded the contract by the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), and that the contract will last for 4.5 years, until the company’s AB103 drug for the treatment of Necrotizing Soft Tissue Infections (NSTI) is completed. The BARDA contract itself is worth $4.4 million over a period of 18 months, after which, and according to progress made on the AB103 drug, the authority will bring the value of the award to the full $24 million. Atox Bio has completed a Phase II trial on patients with NSTI and saw meaningful improvement in the serious condition.

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September 29, 2014 | Bar Ilan University’s Graduate School of Business Administration was ranked third among the top ten MBA programs outside of the United States and Europe for its startup founding alumni. According to PitchBook Data, a provider of data and technology to the private equity and venture capital industries, Bar Ilan was rated third for the number of graduates who have established startup companies and gone on to receive venture capital funds. In order to create the ranking, PitchBook gathered information and examined the academic background of more than 13,000 entrepreneurs from around the world who have raised capital since 2009. “To close observers of the global VC industry, it shouldn’t be surprising to see an Israeli school crack the top 10, as Israel has emerged as a technology epicenter and hub for VC investment over the past several years,” PitchBook wrote in its report.

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