News Briefs

American VC Accel Partners has announced the closing of its $475 million London IV fund. The company says that the fund will be used mainly for investments in Israel and Europe. According to the company, the fund was “raised with unprecedented speed and demand.”

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Israeli startup Vasona Networks, which develops technology for optimization of cellular data traffic, has announced the closing of a $12 million financing round. The round was led by Bessemer Venture Partners, with participation from New Venture Partners and other strategic investors.

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Israeli VC Terra Venture Partners has announced the first closing of its second investment fund at $20 million. The VC estimated that the final closing will be $50 million. Terra’s first fund was raised in 2007, totaling at $25 million.

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Israeli startup Fashion Traffic, which is developing a platform to connect fashion retailers with bloggers and online opinion leaders, has announced that it has raised an undisclosed sum from British firm 7ThingsMedia. Israeli technology blog Newsgeek reports that the investment is estimated at a few million dollars.

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JANVEST Technologies announces the closing of its $5 million Angel fund to be invested in 10-12 early stage Israeli technology start-ups, of which seven have already been selected. The fund will allocate up to $500,000 to each company, in addition to providing ongoing advisory services and business development support from the firm’s bi-national management team.

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Israeli online lender iPawn has announced that it has raised $4 million in a series B financing round. The Texas-based Israeli-owned company says that the funding came from a group of angel investors lead by Rafi Gridron, a respected technology entrepreneur and experienced angel investor.

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Chinese government-owned organization China EverBright Group plans to invest $100-200 million in Israeli high-tech firms. TheMarker reports that Chen Shuang, CEO of the group’s investment branch, which manages $10 billion, has visited Israel in the past week and met with several government officials and representatives from 25 Israeli companies.

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Israeli cancer treatment developer BioCancell has achieved successful results on 64 percent of patients treated for bladder cancer. The company tested its BC-819 treatment, which is intended for patients that cannot be treated with chemotherapy or Bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG). Out of 39 patients treated, cancer was eradicated in 25 and the patients did not develop new tumors over the three-month trial period.

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Two southern cities in Israel, Ashdod and Beersheba, will soon have incubators that will supply jobs and develop the local high-tech industry. The incubator in Beersheba will be funded by JVP, BG Negev Technologies and Applications Ltd. and the The Office of the Chief Scientist, which also fund the Incubator in Ashdod with the Gitam BBDO ad agency and Adi Cohen, a former VP marketing at Cellcom Israel Ltd.

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As part of the 50th annual MIPTV festival to be held in Cannes next month, two Israeli companies will compete in the MIPcube Lab competition for startups developing technology related to TV and video. The two Israeli finalists are Stevie, a startup that converts the user’s Twitter and Facebook feeds into TV-like content and eTribez, which offers an information-gathering platform for TV casting.

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Hebrew University of Jerusalem‘s Yissum Technology Transfer Company is in the process of raising $5 million, for investment in agro biotech companies. Recently, Yissum closed a $5 million fund for investment in life science companies and now hopes to repeat its success.

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Over the past few weeks, Facebook has been recruiting Israeli engineers and flying them out to the company’s development center in Menlo Park, California. Calcalist reports that the company is offering generous salaries to software engineers and offers them financial and logistic assistance in making the transfer and finding an apartment.

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Professor Shafi Goldwasser, an Israeli working at MIT, has won the Association for Computing Machinery’s (ACM) A.M. Turing Award, alongside her colleague Professor Silvio Micali. The two received the award for their groundbreaking work in the field of information encryption.

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American startup YouNow has acquired BlogTV, an Israeli streaming TV platform. BlogTV was sold by owner Oren Levi, and its employees will continue to work for YouNow. Technology blog TechCrunch reports that BlogTV was acquired for its user-base. The sum of the transaction was not disclosed.

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Israeli startup iOnRoad, which developed a smartphone app for drivers to increase road safety, was announced as the winner of Qualcomm‘s Third Annual Qualcomm Ventures QPrize Venture Investment Competition. The company will receive $150,000 in prize money, which brings its total earning from the competition to $250,000, after winning $100,000 in the Israeli leg of the competition.

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