September 10, 2014 | Israeli cybersecurity company LightCyber announced that it raised $10 million in a recent funding round led by Battery Ventures and Glilot Capital. In addition, Marius Nacht, the founder of Check Point Software, contributed to the round, and it was announced that Itzik Parnafes, a general partner at Battery Ventures, will join LightCyber’s board of directors. According to the company, the funds will be used to expand LightCyber’s sales and marketing operations in the US to address the increased demand for the companies anti-breach technology, LightCyber Magma. LightCyber is a cybersecurity company that is a leading provider of breach detection and response solutions founded in 2011 founded by Gioria Engel and Michael Mumcuoglu.
News Briefs
LightCyber Raises $10M In Funding Round
HopOn Can Now Be Used To Pay For TelOFun Bike Rentals
September 10, 2014 | HopOn, the smart mobile payment platform for public transportation, will now allow bike renters in Tel Aviv to pay for their rental using their smartphones. The company signed a cooperation agreement with FSM, the company responsible for the TelOFun city bike rentals in Tel Aviv. Within a number of weeks, those that want to rent a bike will be able to pay for their rental and release the locked bike using the HopOn application. In addition, as part of the cooperation, the companies will release a joint service that allows travelers to pay for their bus rides and bike rentals through a special combined package. HopOn is an Israeli application founded in 2012 as a solution for making public transportation payments more efficient.
Apply Launches New App, Sees Spike In Share Price On TASE
September 10, 2014 | Israeli company Apply Advanced Mobile Technologies saw a 75 percent spike in its share price on the TASE at the beginning of the month, as the company announced plans to launch a new application. The share price jump brought the company’s valuation to NIS 200 million. The app that was recently launched “is a multilingual smartphone keypad,” including technology that will automatically correct and improve English-language typing. The new application is expected to be geared towards the world of sports and will be branded with the logos of international sports-clubs with whom the company has partnerships, according to a statement. Apply was founded in 2013 and is controlled by Noam Lanir, also a leading shareholder of the dictionary and language solutions software Babylon.
Binyamin Zomer Named Head Of Noble Energy In Israel
September 10, 2014 | Binyamin Zomer was appointed the Noble Energy Manager for Israel and will assume his position on October 1. Zomer will be replacing current country manager Lawson Freeman, who will become VP of Business Development Noble Energy’s headquarters in Houston, Texas. Zomer immigrated to Israel in 2010 to become Noble Energy’s Director of Corporate Affairs in Israel. Zomer was formerly AIPAC’s Deputy Director of Policy and Government Affairs and served as a legal adviser to former Oklahoma Senator Don Nickles. Noble Energy is an oil and gas exploration and production company with almost $3 billion in revenue.
Comverse To Fire 200 Employees In Israel
September 10, 2014 | Billing and digital services technology provider Comverse announced that it will fire up to 200 employees in Israel as part of a worldwide firing round. In total 350 employees around the world will be fired, 200 of those in Israel. At the beginning of 2014, Comverse had 2,500 employees worldwide with more than one third of them in Israel. Comverse has recently experienced a decline in its financial results in the second quarter of 2014, leading to the firing of nearly 14 percent of the company’s workforce.
Tel Aviv University Team Takes Gold At Mathematics Olympics
September 9, 2014 | The Tel Aviv University team was the first ever Israeli team to win the International Mathematics Competition in Bulgaria. This year’s competition was organized by the University College London and the American University in Bulgaria between July 29 and August 4. The winning team consisted of four Tel Aviv University and two Technion Israel Institute of Technology students. The high-level competition has been held consecutively for the past 20 years and this year 73 teams of university students competed.
Serendip Music Tech To Shut Down Its Services
September 9, 2014 | The Israel-based music tech startup Serendip announced that it will be shutting down its services on September 22, 2014. The company is reportedly shutting down its services because, as stated in an email, “we can no longer sustain Serendip as a music service.” Serendip has struggled for sometime to keep up with music tech competitors like Songza, Spotify and Pandora. The service specialized in pulling customized music recommendations from users’ Facebook friends and Twitter followers at no cost, using music available on YouTube and Soundcloud. Serendip was founded in 2011 by Sagee Ben-Zedeff and Asaf Atzmon.
Senior Lenovo VP: ‘Israel Is An Important High Tech Innovation Center’
September 9, 2014 | During a recent visit to Israel, Senior Vice President of Lenovo Dr. Peter Hortensius, met with hundreds of startups, stating that Israel is one of the world’s most important centers of high tech innovation. Dr. Hortensius made the statements as part of Lenovo’s considerations to open a research and development center in Israel. During his trip, Dr. Hortensius also visited other major technology companies with offices in Israel, such as Google and Intel stating, “I met with a large number of companies to see what our logical choice here would be.” Lenovo is a Chinese multinational computer technology company with headquarters in China and the United States.
Opticul Diagnostics Receives $450K From BATM Advanced Communications
September 9, 2014 | BATM Advanced Communications will invest up to $450,000 in Opticul Diagnostics, an Israeli company producing vitro diagnostic devices. Opticul has developed a process for the rapid diagnosis of micro-organisms based on their outer morphology using photonic laser technology. This process allows faster, cheaper and more reliable diagnostics compared to current methods. As part of the investment, BATM and Opticul will conduct joint R&D in the US and Israel to develop and launch the next prototype of the Optidet device. BATM is the provider of advanced technology for the networked telecommunications and medical lab equipment markets. Opticul is headed by CEO Prof. Israel Gannot and has already obtained FDA and European ISO approval for its early Opidet prototype.
Allot Communications Receives $15M Order From Tier-1 Operator
September 9, 2014 | Allot Communications announced that it received an expansion order totaling $15 million from a tier-1 operator. The order is for Allot’s Service Gateway Tera, ServiceProtector, and ClearSee Data Source solutions. The tier-1 operator most likely chose Allot Communications for the sale because of its integrated services and extreme scalability that supports a high density of 10GE ports that suit large-scale networks. Allot is a global communications company and supplier of service optimization and revenue generation solutions for fixed and mobile broadband operators as well as cloud providers.
Blavatnik Family Foundation Donates $20M To Tel Aviv University
September 9, 2014 | The Blnvatnik Family Foundation, headed by Ukrainian-born US billionaire Len Blavatnik, will donate $20 million to Tel Aviv University. The money will go towards applied research as part of the Blavatnik Initiative program. Blavatnik is best known in Israel for the acquisition of Clal Industries and a major investment in GetTaxi. The Blavatnik Family Foundation has actively donated to academic institution in the U.S. and has supported TAU’s Blavatnik School of Computer Science. The new donation will be used to fund three new centers and two funds at TAU that will focus on promoting applied research, hiring top researchers, and movie production through the Department of Cinema and Television.
Facebook Leases Four Floors In Tel Aviv’s Rothschild 22 Tower
September 9, 2014 | The popular social network Facebook announced that it will lease four floors in a central Tel Aviv high-rise. The building is the Rothschild 22 Tower owned by the Aviv Group, controlled by Doron Aviv, Dafna Harlev and Lahav Real Estate. The floors that will be leased by Facebook are in the middle of the 29-story building and span a total of 3,500 square meters. According to most estimates, Facebook will pay NIS 120 per square meter and will be allotted parking spaces in the building.
Hyperion Therapeutics Cancels Acquisition Of Andromeda Biotech
September 9, 2014 | Hyperion Therapeutics has cancelled its acquisition of Israeli company Andromeda Biotech. The latter company is developing a treatment for Type I diabetes called DiaPep277. According to reports, Hyperion canceled the acquisition after discovering evidence that Andromeda employees falsified the drug’s clinical trial results. The acquisition was valued at hundreds of millions of dollars based on the approval and successful marketing of the drug. “Globes” reports that Andromeda was not directly informed that the acquisition was canceled. Andromeda Biotech was founded in 2007 and is headed by CEO Dr. Shlomo Dagan.
BiondVax Receives $1.3M Grant From Chief Scientist
September 9, 2014 | The Israeli company developing a universal flu vaccine, BiondVax, announced that it received a $1,346,159 (NIS 4,870,000) grant from the Office of the Chief Scientist. The grant is intended for the continued development and advanced clinical program of the Universal Influenza Vaccine being developed by the company. The funds will also be used to improve the manufacturing process and preparation of the scale-up efforts to eventually commercialize the vaccine. BiondVax was co-founded in 2003 by Dr. Ron Babecoff, who leads the company as CEO and President.
Ben Gurion University Joins National Academy Of Inventors
September 8, 2014 | Israel’s Ben Gurion University in the Negev accepted an invitation from the National Academy of Inventors to become an International Affiliate Member Institution. The National Academy of Inventors, headed by President Prof. Paul R. Sanberg, has members from seven countries, and BGU will be the first Israeli institution to join. “We were pleased to accept the invitation to join the NAI. Recognition of our patented achievements will help us cultivate and innovate more use-inspired research,” noted BGU President Prof. Rivka Carmi. The National Academy of Inventors is a non-profit organization comprised of US and international universities and other governmental and non-governmental institutions.
