News Briefs

US-Israel-based TriPlay, a developer of cloud-based services that allow users to share multimedia content across multiple platforms and devices, has raised $5 million from new investor Kenges Rakishev. The latest funding brings its total investment to $15 million and will allow Triplay to intensify its marketing efforts for accelerating user acquisition, new business partnerships and expand its global footprint into Europe and Asia. The company has offices in New York and Israel.

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Ginger Software, the developer of contextual grammar and spell-checking tools, has raised $5.4 million in a financing round led by Horizon Ventures and Harbor Pacific Capita. The financing comes less than six months after the company raised $6.3 million, bringing the total amount raised to approximately $21 million. Ginger, founded in 2007, targets people who learn English as a second language and people suffering from dyslexia – and provide its users with an online service that automatically corrects their text as they type.

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DesignArt Networks, an Israeli company that designs solutions for the mobile 3G, 4G and high-speed wireless backhaul infrastructure, will be sold to chipmaker Qualcomm. Israeli media report that the acquisition is estimated in $120-140 million. Qualcomm is expected to release a formal announcement in the next few days, after the two companies have been negotiating terms for several months. DesignArt Networks was founded in 2006 and is based in Ra’anana, Israel.

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GE Helathcare, together with OrbiMed Israel, announced a $20 million investment in Ornim, a developer of the CerOx monitor that non-invasively monitors blood flow and oxygen saturation in brain and muscle tissue. The investment was made as part of a financing round led by OrbiMed, also including Agate Medical Investment Fund. The financing will be used for further development, clinical studies, international marketing and commercialization of Ornim’s CerOx monitor. Ornim Medical, based in Lod, Israel, was founded in 2004.

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uTest, the provider of software testing services, has acquired mobile app quality tools company Apphance, from its parent company, Polidea, for a few million dollars. Exact financial details of the deal were not disclosed. The acquisition enables uTest to combine all-in-one tools for build distribution, crash reporting and in-app user feedback with its testing services. uTest was founded in 2007 by CEO Doron Reuveni and VP product Roy Solomon. It is based in the US with presence in Israel.

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Rosetta Green, which develops improved crop traits for the agriculture and alternative fuel industries, signed a licensing agreement with Iowa State University Research Foundation, for a microRNA gene that has potential to improve resistance of plants to Nematodes. Nematodes are microscopic, parasitic worms that penetrate into the plant’s root cells, weakening it and reducing yield. Financial terms of the agreement have not been disclosed. Rosetta Green is based in Rehovot, Israel.

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Cloud services developer Garantia Data announced that it has closed initial seed funding of $3 million from angel investors. Investors include serial start up investor Zohar Gilon, investors who seed funded StoreWise, which was acquired by IBM in 2010, and The Time Innovations, which invests in media start up companies, according to Israeli website Globes. In June 2012, Garantia Data launched its fully automated, in-memory NoSQL cloud services at GigaOm’s Structure LaunchPad. Garantia Data’s cloud service hosts Memcached and Redis.

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Mazor Robotics, a maker of robotic navigation systems for spinal surgeries, has signed an agreement with two funds of Oracle Investment Managements, which will invest an initial $7.5 million in the company and up to an additional $7.5 million over 36 months, subject to certain conditions. According to Major Robotics, their device, called Renaissance, is transforming spine surgery from freehand operations to more accurate procedures, with less radiation — even for minimally invasive surgery, scoliosis, and other complex spinal deformity cases.

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Pluristem Therapeutics, a developer of placenta-based cell therapies, announced it has received approval from the Paul-Ehrlich-Institute (PEI), the medical regulatory body in Germany, to commence a Phase I/II study to assess the safety and efficacy of its treatment for the regeneration of injured gluteal musculature following total hip replacement. The Company’s patented PLX (PLacental eXpanded) cells are a drug delivery platform that releases a cocktail of therapeutic proteins in response to a host of local and systemic inflammatory and ischemic diseases. The company is headquartered in Haifa, Israel with offices the US.

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The University Grants Commission of India (UGC) and the Israel Science Foundation (ISF) signed a Memorandum of Understanding, launching the India-Israel Joint Research Program. The three year program aims to bring together Indian and Israeli scientists and researchers to carry forward together academic research in areas including life sciences and medicine, technologies, social sciences, humanities and arts.

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Israeli startup Cortica announced that it has completed its second round of funding with a $7 million investment from Horizons Ventures and from Ynon Kreiz, the former Chairman & CEO of the Endemol Group. The company had already raised $4 million from angel investors. Cortica offers an image recognition technology that enables computers to comprehend photo and video content on the web. Their platform can automatically recognize and interpret large amounts of visual data in real-time, including places, logos and products. Cortica was founded In Israel in 2007.

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Israeli wastewater treatment solutions provider Aqwise announced that it has raised $4.5 million in a financing round led by new strategic investor – Triveni Engineering & Industries, a publicly traded industrial group based in India. According to the company, the investment will be used to expand its global presence and to focus on its R&D program for cost-effective and environmentally-friendly solutions. Aqwise has offices in Israeli and Mexico.

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daPulse, the provider of a topic-based internal communications tool for companies, announced that it has raised Series A funding of 1.5$ million from GenesisPartners. The company’s tool, which encourages employees to share updates on their work is already in use in over 15 companies. The investment funds will be used to further develop the platform, expand into new markets, and ramp-up marketing efforts in the U.S. and Europe. daPulse launched as an independent company in February 2012 after two years of development and testing within Wix.com. It is based in Tel Aviv, Israel.

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BioTime announced that its subsidiary Cell Cure Neurosciences has been awarded a grant of 5 million NIS (approximately $1.33 million) from Israel’s Office of the Chief Scientist. The funds will help finance the development of OpRegen(R), a cell-based therapeutic product for the treatment of age-related macular degeneration – a severe form of acute vision loss and the leading cause of blindness in an aging population. Cell Cure, established in 2005 is located in Jerusalem, Israel on the campus of Hadassah University Hospital.

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Bizzabo, an Israel based startup that offers a platform for event organizers and a smartphone application for event attendees, has raised $1.5 million from investors including Kaedan Capital Group, Prof. Yair Tauman, Gigi Levy and the AfterDox angels group, among others. The funding will be used to establish a US presence, to expand the company’s activity and to grow its user base. The company was founded in 2011 and is based in Tel Aviv.

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