News Briefs

August 7, 2014 | Israeli company 6Scan, a leading provider of automated website security services for small businesses, announced that it will be adding Automated Malware Quarantine, a patent-pending real-time malware detection-and-response technology, to its regular software suite. The Automated Malware Quarantine automates malware protection, securing websites from emerging threats as soon as they appear. “As threats to small businesses become more advanced solutions need to keep pace” explains 6Scan CEO Chris Weltzien. The idea for 6Scan, founded in 2011, was conjured up in the Matzov Israeli military unit responsible for defending confidential communications from hackers by co-founder Nitzan Miron and Yaron Tal.

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August 7, 2014 | Samsung Israel announced that it will let off 25 of its 250 employees at its Ramat Gan R&D center. The employees that were fired worked in the analog and ASIC sectors, while the R&D center is focusing on other areas, like mobile health. An example of Samsung’s new focus on mobile health is evident in the S5 Galaxy smartphone with the blood pressure and heart rate sensor. The Samsung R&D Israel is responsible for the development of images on Samsung smartphones.

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August 7, 2014 | The Israeli internet company Wix outperformed financial analysts’ forecasts in the second financial quarter, with company revenue soaring 82.5 percent in comparison to the same quarter last year. The company finished the second quarter with $33.4 million in revenue, up 17.8 percent from the preceding quarter. Analysts assessed that Wix would make $31-32 million in revenue with collections totaling $39.9 million. Wix developed a platform that allows for the easy construction of websites aimed at small businesses with over 51 million users in 190 countries.

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August 6, 2014 | Trellas, one of Russia’s biggest independent retail groups, invested over $30 million in Vidmind, a cloud-based software suite and set-top box. Trellas has over 3,200 stores throughout Russia and the investment comes in an effort to become a global leader in the OTT (over-the-top) content revolution. TVzor, Trellas’ OTT Pay TV Service, uses Vidmind’s cloud-based, hybrid OTT/DTT platform as the foundation for a new primary TV service in Russia. “Our goal is to lead the TV revolution by ‘going virtual’ – that is to say, leveraging the open Internet and free-to-air TV to provide a primary TV service,” said Maxim Nogotkov, founder and majority shareholder of Trellas. Vidmind is an Israel-based company with offices in Tel Aviv and Lviv, Ukraine. The company itself is a subsidiary of Trellas as the later was an initial investor when Vidmind was founded in 2012.

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August 6, 2014 | Viber, the popular free voice and text messaging service, released a new version of its mobile application for Windows Phone 8. The newest version includes a feature called ‘Hold & Talk’, a feature that allows users to connect almost instantaneously by pressing a button. The user can record a voice message to send to other Viber users by pressing down on a button to record, letting go to send, with the user on the other side receiving the message in real time. At the beginning of the year, Israeli-founded company Viber was acquired by the Japanese communications and technology giant Rakuten for $900 million. Viber was founded in 2010 and is currently co-owned by Talmon Marco, Igor Megzinik, Sani Maroli and Ofer Smocha.

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August 6, 2014 | Israeli brain research company EIMindA announced that the United States Food & Drug Administration (FDA) has cleared the company’s BNA Analysis System for the assessment of brain function. The Brain Network Activity combines non-invasive, multi-channel EEG technology with signal processing and analysis algorithms to assess brain activity during certain processes. The system is then able to take the data it collects and provide both quantitative and qualitative insights into brain functionality. “Greater understanding of how our brain processes information, how it gets its job done, ultimately holds the potential to improve brain health and disease management over a person’s lifetime,” said Ronen Gadot, CEO of EIMindA. EIMindA was founded in 2006 to address an unmet need in the accurate, objective diagnosis and treatment of brain-related disorders through a data-driven approach.

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August 6, 2014 | Comverse, a telecommunications software provider for businesses, acquired Spanish monetization company Solaiemes for an undisclosed amount. According to Comverse, the acquisition was made to expand the monetization of its digital services and its engineering expertise and talent in the IP messaging and digital services domains, making Comverse’s services more comprehensive solutions. Comverse has an extensive consumer base that extends over 125 countries, delivering solutions to 450 different communications service providers that serve over two billion customers.

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August 5, 2014 | Israeli company Tower Semiconductor published its results for the second financial quarter, noting a revenue of $234 million, up 76 percent from the previous quarter and 87 percent more than the corresponding quarter in 2013. On a non-GAAP basis, Tower made a profit of $31 million, with both the revenue and the profits beating the consensus analysts’ estimates. Founded in 1993, Tower Semiconductor and its US subsidiary Jazz Semiconductor manufactures semiconductors and integrated circuits for the electronics industry and is publicly traded on NASDAQ and TA-100.

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August 5, 2014 | The Israeli content discovery platform Taboola announced that it will acquire US company Perfect Market in order to broaden the company’s portfolio and its products. Perfect Market allow content providers to increase their revenue by optimizing the text advertisements that appear on websites. Taboola hopes to use Perfect Market’s tools to offer their customers an additional service, Taboola-X, that will bring in extra revenue for publishers. This is Taboola’s first acquisition of a company, occurring after the company reported $250 million in revenue. The company has yet to disclose the financial details of the sale, but according to reports, Perfect Market has raised up to $30 million to date, which leads to estimates that Taboola paid tens of millions of dollars for the company.

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August 4, 2014 | Kadimastem, an Israeli stem cell technology developer, announced that it signed a cooperation deal with Merck Serono for scanning drugs as potential treatments for multiple sclerosis and other neurodegenerative diseases. Merck Serono is Merck’s biopharmaceutical division which hopes to use Kadimastem’s technology to scan potential new drugs. Kadimastem, headed by CEO Yossi Ben-Yossef, has developed technologies for stem cell differentiation for oligodendrocytes, or cells required by the brain for the production myelin for the insulation of nerve fibers.

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August 4, 2014 | EndyMed, an Israeli medical equipment developer creating equipment based on radio frequency technologies, signed an agreement with Chinese company OHMK Medical Technology for $7 million. OHMK will acquire 47.93 million EndyMed shares, giving OHMK a 37.21 percent stake in the company. OHMK markets EndyMed’s products EndyMed Glow and EndyMed Pro in China. Founded in 2007, EndyMed is a medical technology company specializing in the design, development and sale of energy based aesthetic treatments. The company’s products have been approved by the Food & Drug Administration in the United States and China.

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August 4, 2014 | According to “Globes,” following their NASDAQ IPO’s, three Israeli biomed companies saw the value of their shares drop sharply. BioBlast‘s share lost 38 percent of its value, Macrocure‘s 25 percent and VBL Therapeutics 18 percent. The drop in prices corresponds to three percent dip in the NASDAQ biotechnology index last Thursday and Friday. VBL Therapeutics, a company developing breakthrough drugs for infectious diseases and cancer, raised $65 million at $12 a share, which dropped to $9.88 a share by the end of Friday. Macrocure, a company developing treatments for wounds, raised $53 million at $10 a share, but the share price dropped 25 percent down to $7.49 a share. BioBlast Pharma, a developer of drugs for rare diseases, saw shares valued at $11 a piece drop to $6.90, a 38 percent drop.

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August 4, 2014 | Dassault Systèmes, a world leader in 3D software design, announced that the company will acquire Quintiq, a supply chain planning and software optimization company, for $335.7 million (EUR 250 million). Quintiq is a company with more than 800 employees specializing in production, logistics and workforce applications. Their software is used in more than 90 countries by 250 customers and 1,000 sites. Quintiq, headquartered in the Netherlands, will extend Dassault Systèmes’ 3DEXPERIENCE platform to business operations planning, enabling the latter company’s long-term goal of harmonizing product, nature and life. Dassault Systèmes is a French software company specializing in the production of 3D software, with offices in Israel.

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August 3, 2014 | The Israeli application that allows you to send ‘Yo!‘ to your friends has released a new service called Yo Lineup. The Yo Lineup tool allows doctors’ offices and restaurants to handle queues, letting those in the waiting room or restaurant lobby know when it’s time for their doctor’s appointment or to sit down at their table. The app lets them know by sending a ‘Yo’ to their smartphones. However, in order to use Yo’s Lineup feature, users must already have a Yo app and account up and running on their smartphone. Yo is an messaging app that was released only two months ago, invented by Mobli CEO Moshe Hogeg and Yo CEO Or Arbel.

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August 3, 2014 | Perion announced on August 1, 2014 (Friday) that it will extend its existing partnership with Bing for an additional three years. The agreement will extend from January 1, 2015 to December 31, 2017. The agreement also includes desktop and tablet distribution with limited exclusivity to the United States as well as mobile distribution. “We are very excited to renew with Microsoft for another 3 years. We are committed to providing app developers with great solutions and working with Microsoft and Bing.com is an important part of that solution,” commented Ms. Danielle Ullner, Perion VP of Search Partnerships. In addition to companies like Bing and Google, Perion has search distribution partnerships with Ask.com and Yahoo. Founded in 2000, Perion is a global consumer software company based in Redmond, Washington and Tel Aviv, Israel.

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