News Briefs

August 27, 2014 | A new Israeli startup, Effective Space Solutions is developing a solution called the De-Orbiter for towing satellites that are sent to the wrong place. Founded by the former head of the Israeli space directorate and Israel Aerospace Industries Arie Halsband, the company’s satellite directing technology is set to hit the market in approximately 18 months. The company believes that the De-Orbiter satellite redirector could potentially have helped the Galileo satellite that was launched in the wrong direction. The startup was founded this year and hopes to provide a solution to a problem faced by the aerospace industry for decades – the incorrect location and redirection of satellites.

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August 27, 2014 | Equity crowdfunding platform iAngels conducted a survey which found that venture capital firms actually had little to do with startup exits over the past three years. The figures, which measured high tech and technology companies (including biomedical companies), showed that 45 percent of the 20 most profitable exits were based exclusively upon angel investments. In addition, the survey found that the most profitable exit since 2011 was Cyvera that sold in March 2014 to Palo Alto Networks for $200 million. Second place was taken by Playtika, which sold to casino giant Harrah’s for $145 million after raising just $1.5 million from investors and third by Crossrider, which was acquired by Teddy Sagi for $37 million after raising $2 million.

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August 27, 2014 | The developer of vehicle collision prevention technology and recent IPO issuer Mobileye saw its share price rise dramatically yesterday (Wednesday) after nine underwriters covered the company. Out of the nine underwriters that wrote about Mobileye, seven stated that Mobileye would ‘Outperform’ and suggest ‘Buy’, while the remaining underwriters rated it as neutral. One analyst even stated that Mobileye is “the car industry’s IPhone moment,” referring to the potentially disruptive nature of Mobileye’s technology. Mobileye’s share price rose by 8.5 percent yesterday, raising the share price to $41.43 with a market cap of $1.33 billion. Mobileye was founded in 1999 by Prof. Amnon Shashua and CEO Ziv Aviram.

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August 27, 2014 | Feedvisor, the automated Amazon repricing tool based on certain factors, announced that it raised $6 million. The current round was led by Square Peg Capital and investors from previous rounds JAL Ventures, Oryzn Capital, and Micro Angel Fund. Feedvisor’s platform adjusts the prices on Amazon according to factors like demand and time of day, also known as algorithmic pricing. The company will use the $6 million investment to build a business intelligence suite that will share all of the buying and pricing insights its collected since its founding in 2011. Feedvisor was founded by CMO Yair Margolin, CEO Victor Rosenman and CTO Eyal Lanxner.

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August 26, 2014 | According to reports, the low-cost European airline Ryanair hopes to open a new flight hub in Israel, opening an “Israeli version” of the airline. The reports come following statements made by Ryanair CEO Michael O’ Leary to the Irish Independent newspaper. However, in the interview with the publication, O’ Leary expressed disappointment in Israeli authority’s regulation, blaming them for the delay in Ryanair’s entry into the Israeli market. In the same interview, O’ Leary expanded on his vision of turning Israel into a low-cost flight hub stating that it hopes to fly to destinations like Russia, central Europe, Britain, Germany and other locations from Israel. Ryanair was founded in 1985.

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August 26, 2014 | Following five years of research and development, the cosmetic company Clinique has announced that the major active ingredient in their Smart Custom-Repair Serum is Israeli red algae. The new serum has 37 patents on its list of ingredients, in which Israel’s red algae sits at the top. The product sells for $50 per 50 milliliters in the US, claiming to fight the oxidative effects of aging by targeting the areas that need it most. According to Clinique and following trials of the product, women reported a “noticeable improvement in the treatment of uneven skin tone, dark spots, dull-looking skin, fine lines and wrinkles and firming.”

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August 26, 2014 | According to a report by “The Marker,” the national Israeli investment in research and development slowed in 2013, when compared to 2012 by 1.3 percent. In 2013, national spending on research and development in the high tech sector totaled NIS 44.2 billion, 83 percent of which was from the business sector and the remaining amount from academic and governmental institutions. The data is important because national spending records are often consulted by foreign investors.

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August 26, 2014 | According to a report by “Calcalist,” the Israeli telecommunications software company Comverse will fire nearly 200 workers as part of a global firing round. The company, which is traded on NASDAQ, had 2,500 employees, 900 of them from Israel, as of January 31, 2014. The recent round of lay offs is the result of company losses in the year’s first financial quarter. Comverse was incorporation in 1997 as part of Comverse Technology.

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August 26, 2014 | Following positive results in testing of Kite Pharma‘s cancer drug, the company’s shares surged 29 percent to $28.70 per share in after-hours trading. The results of the study on 15 patients with aggressive non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, or blood cancer, were very positive, with 8 patients in complete remission and four others in partial remission. The company now plans to file and investigational new drug application in order to launch the clinical trail of the drug KTE-C19 for the treatment of blood cancers. The current trial was conducted by Kite Pharma and funded in part by the National Cancer Institute of America. Kite Pharma was founded in 2009 by Arie Belldegrun, an Israeli-American oncologist, specializing in developing therapies that use the patient’s immune system to treat cancer.

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August 26, 2014 | According to a “Globes” report, Elron Electronic Industries, which is controlled by IDB Group, announced that it will be distributing a $110 million dividend to its shareholders. Elron has notified the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange that it will distribute the dividend at $3.70 a share, following a decision by the company’s board on Sunday. Elron clarified that the dividend to be distributed is based on surpluses the company has amassed over the past two years, since their last dividend. Elron is a technology holding company founded in 1962 by Uzia Galil.

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August 26, 2014 | Uber, a US-based taxi-hailing company, officially launched its services today (Tuesday) in Israel. The Uber rideshare service is based on an application that allows users to call up a private driver or cab service and has already launched with success in a dozen different cities around the world. In Israel, Uber’s services will be launched as uberTAXI, similar to the current Israeli service GetTaxi that allows users to order cabs with the touch of a button (on their smartphone). Uber has already announced that it will allow its drivers to work with GetTaxi’s system, and vice versa. Uber is an American company worth nearly $10 billion, considered one of the largest privately-held Internet companies on the market.

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August 25, 2014 | According to a report in “Calcalist,” Indian conglomerate group Tata and American company Nielsen invested $25 million in Pereg Ventures. Nielsen, a global information and measurement company, owns 51 percent of the Israeli venture capital firm and gave $10 million to the VC this round. Tata and other American investors also contributed to the $25 million sum that the Israel VC raised. This is the first round conducted by the VC, that hopes to raise between $50-100 million in total. Pereg Ventures is managed by Ziv Ben Baruch in Israel and two other partners in New York, focusing on post-seed to Series B companies in the United States and Israel.

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August 25, 2014 | The underwriters on the secondary offering for Ceragon Networks spent $5.7 million to increase the proceeds from the offering to $45.1 million for the company. Ceragon is listed on NASDAQ and the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange at a $158 million market cap. The underwriters, Needham and Oppenheimer bought up close up to 2.9 million shares, with each share valued at $2.10. Ceragon, a provider of high-capacity wireless communications solutions, stated that the company needed more money in order to fulfill the orders coming in and to expand the company’s current projects. Ceragon was founded in 1996 and is headquartered in Tel Aviv.

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August 24, 2014 | GoDaddy acquired Mad Mimi, an email marketing tool that tracks the way people create, share and send email newsletters online. GoDaddy is a major web hosting service that hopes to Mad Mimi’s service to provide its small business customers with mail marketing tools. While the terms of the deal were not yet released, Mad Mimi has very little in terms of investments and funding, although the company was profitable upon acquisition. Mad Mimi was founded by South African-born Israeli Gary Levitt in 2007 and is headquartered in Brooklyn, New York.

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August 24, 2014 | Israeli biotechnology company NeuroDerm raised $16 million in investments to continue working on its wearable treatment for Parkinson’s disease. The financing round was led by existing investors. The company is currently in the midst of a mid-stage study for its treatment for neurodegenerative disease, a belt pump that is worn around the waist and continuously administers Parkinson’s drugs for the most severe cases. The company and the testing of their Phase II treatment received a $1 million from the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research.

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