May 24, 2016 | Israeli cancer detection company Nucleix has raised $3 million from Morris Kahn’s Aurum Ventures MKI, OrbiMed Israel Partners, and Zohar Zisapel, OrbiMed and Zohar Zisapel invested in the startup’s first $5.5 million financing round and the company has also raised $3 million from private investors. Nucleix is involved in the relatively new research field of epigenetics (a situation in which identical genes express themselves in different ways) in order to detect different types of cancers. The company’s first test for the detection of bladder cancer could be available in Europe within a couple of months. Nucleix was founded in 2008 by CEO Elon Ganor a former CEO of voice-over-IP pioneer VocalTec, and Weizmann Institute graduates VR research Dr. Danny Frumkin, and VP development Dr. Danny Wasserstrom. Dr Opher Shapira is president and COO.

MassChallenge May 23, 2016 |The MassChallenge startup accelerator has accepted 48 new startups for a special program in Jerusalem, which launched yesterday at an event in the Mahane Yehuda open air market, where the accelerator will operate. The accelerator’s 500 projects have been incorporated, 150 of which are from countries other than Israel including Turkey, Nigeria, South Korea, Cameroon, and the US. The companies accepted to the accelerator are from the high-tech industry, life sciences, social initiatives, and other fields. The entrepreneurs and companies taking part in the program will benefit from the accelerator’s work environment, training, and access to the chain’s professional partners in Israel and throughout the world. In Israel, the program will finish on October 27 with a ceremony at which prizes of up to NIS 1 million will be given to the outstanding companies.

May 10, 2016 |US cloud computing company Salesforce.com is acquiring Israeli data-entry automation startup Implisit Insights, the “Wall Street Journal” reports, “according to people familiar with the matter.” No financial details concerning the deal have been disclosed but “two people familiar with the deal described it as worth tens of millions of dollars.”  The “Wall Street Journal” added that a spokeswoman for Salesforce.com declined to comment and Implisit was not available to comment. Founded in 2012 and based in Tel Aviv, Implisit helps customers analyze data among sales teams and claims it can increase revenue 30% using algorithms. The company was founded by CEO Gilad Raichshtain and CTO Elad Donsky and raised $3.3 million in 2014 in a financing round led by Gemini Israel Ventures. Salesforce.com has previously bought two Israeli startups: SaaS encryption services company Navajo Systems in 2011; and data-mining startup Bluetail in 2012.

May 10, 2016 | Israeli early-stage enterprise storage company E8 Storage has closed a $12 million Series B financing round led by Accel, with participation from existing investors Magma Venture Partners and Vertex Ventures. The investment will help the company to launch its next-generation flash storage with rack-scale architecture for the enterprise and software-defined cloud. E8 Storage’s rack-scale flash architecture has been designed to maximise the performance of its shared, software-defined NVMe solution for high-performance enterprise applications. The solution performs ten times faster than existing all-flash arrays with lower total costs. The company was founded in 2014 by CEO Zivan Ori and VP R&D Alex Friedman. Headquartered in Santa Clara, California E8 Storage’s development center is in Tel Aviv.

May 9, 2016 | Winners of the 36-hour student hackathon called HackIDC, which was held at Israel’s IDC Herzliya last week, were announced. Some 250 students competed to create a web, mobile, or hardware product. The panel of judges included some of Israel’s most renowned entrepreneurs: Dov Moran, Gil Shwed and Prof. Amnon Shashua. The first place 15,000 NIS prize went to the BetYOURwish project, and app hoping to change the way internet shopping works. The app allows users to acquire products from the ‘wishlist’ at an affordable price by providing a variety of ebay products and amadeus flights in partial prices by participating in raffles. The second place 7,00 NIS prize went to the H-Ball project, an interactive catching game for children. With every pass of a smart ball the player gets to answer a question, by rattling the ball different directions. The questions pool can be altered by the parents and is meant to encourage an outdoor game with an intellectual challenge. The third place 3,000 NIS prize went to the FeelMybrand project, which predicts the success of internet products by analysis of the user’s different physiological measurements. The analysis is done by identification micro-movements which are filmed by a laptop webcam and are processed by an algorithm.

May 9, 2016 |The Israel Venture Capital Research Center (IVC) has published its IVC-Shibolet Israeli Private Equity Market Survey for the first quarter of 2016. The survey showed that Israeli private equity activity dropped in the first quarter of 2016: $265 million invested in 15 deals. In additon, the survey reported a 69% decrease in private equity deal making in in the first quarter of 2016 from the previous quarter. Regarding technology sector leads, it was found that software dominated PE market with 64% of all dollar proceeds. Also, straight equity continued as the favored investment mechanism – 80% of deals in the quarter.

May 8, 2016 | Israeli walking navigation app Sidekix has raised $1 million in seed round funding from Israeli and Australian investors. Sidekix aims to help users  find new places that might interest them when out walking.  First available in London, its launch city, the company has  expanded to Paris, Berlin, and New York too. Sidekix was c0-founded in 2015 by Miron Perel, who serves as the CEO, CTO Eli Baram, and Marketing VP Jenny Drezin. The company has six employees and has its offices at the Tel Aviv port.

May 8, 2016 | Israeli cancer treatment company Galil Medical has been acquired by UK healthcare company BTG plc for $110 million. Galil Medical, which has its development operations in Yokneam near Haifa, has developed cryoablation systems and needles for treating kidney, prostate and other types of cancer. BTG, traded on the London Stock Exchange and Nasdaq specializes in cancer treatments and medical devices and has a market cap of $2.2 billion. Galil Medical is a veteran company, which in the 1990s developed a minimally invasive medical device to burn tissues through needles used for freezing. Its first target was prostate cancer. In 2003, Galil Medical merged with UK company Amersham, which took a 75% stake, while Amersham in its turn was acquired by GE. Over the years Galil Medical raised $48 million from Investor Growth Capital, Thomas McNerney Partners and Vertical Group.

May 5, 2016 | Israeli startup Via, which develops an on-demand transportation solution, has raised $100 million in Series C funding. The company has already closed $70 million in financing with a further $30 million in strategic investment to close in the coming weeks. This is the largest amount raised by an Israeli startup this year. The funding was led by Pitango Growth, along with leading venture capital firms and strategic investors from North America, Europe, and Asia, including Poalim Capital Markets and C4 Ventures. Previous investors Ervington Investments (representing Roman Abramovich), Hearst Ventures, and 83North (formerly Greylock IL) also participated in the round. The latest funds bring Via’s total investment to $137 million. Headquartered in New York City, the company’s development center is in Tel Aviv. Founded by Daniel Ramot and Oren Shoval, Via operates in New York City and Chicago and enables tens of thousands of passengers each day to seamlessly share their ride with others headed the same way. The financing will be used to drive growth in those two cities,expand into new ones, and aid municipalities and transit authorities seeking to improve their public transit services by using Via’s technology.

May 4, 2016 | Israeli gesture recognition company eyesight Technologies has raised $20 million from Shenzhen-based technology group Kuang-Chi. This is the first Israeli investment by the new $300 million technology investment fund announced by Kuang-Chi earlier this week. Part of the investment reportedly will be used to fund joint initiatives in Hong Kong and China. eyeSight is developing touch-free interfaces for digital devices, such as televisions, tablets, and smartphones. The software does not require special hardware, but uses a smartphone or network camera and the company’s eyeCan technology is used by the Windows user interface. Based in Herzliya, the company was founded in 2005 by CTO Itay Katz.

May 4, 2016 | Public transportation app Moovit has announced it will be integrated with the ride-sharing app Uber in 131 cities in 22 countries. Moovit uses official transit data plus crowdsourced data to give riders the best information about potential routes. With Uber integration, ride sharing becomes yet another option for managing local trips, in addition to public transportation. Moovit’s Uber integration will be rolling out gradually over the next few weeks across the U.S., U.K., Italy, Spain, France, Turkey, Colombia, Chile, Mexico, Australia, Canada, Singapore, Norway, Finland, Netherlands, Uruguay, Portugal, Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Greece. Moovit is already available in over 800 cities and more than 60 countries. Founded in Israel in 2011, and run by Co-Founder and CEO Nir Erez, Moovit has already raised $81.5 million in funding from the likes of BRM Capital, Sequoia Capital, Nokia Growth Partners and Gemini Israel.

May 3, 2016 | Israeli flavors and food ingredients company Frutarom Industries Ltd. has acquired 100% of German partnership Extrakt Chemie Dr. Bruno Stellmach GmbH &Co. KG, together with the property on which Extrakt Chemie’s plant is situated, for approximately $6 million in cash plus the assumption of debt (net) amounting to approximately $2.2 million. For the fiscal year ended February 2016, Extrakt Chemie’s revenue was some $10 million. The purchase agreement includes a mechanism for future consideration conditional on the business performance of Extrakt Chemie during 2016 and 2017. The transaction was independently financed. Extrakt Chemie was established in 1969. It develops, produces and markets specialty solutions of natural extracts, some that include plant-sourced enzymes for use mainly as raw material (API) in the pharmaceutical market, with proven benefits in, among other things, the treatment of liver diseases, digestive problems and the prevention of infections. Besides Germany, it is also active in Denmark, Switzerland, France and Austria and in Australia. It has about 35 employees. Frutarom was founded in 1933 by Yehuda Araten and Maurice Gerzon.

 May 3, 2016| Israeli startup Sensiya has been bought up by the musician will.i.iam’s consumer tech label i.am+ for an unknown sum. Sensiya is a mobile SDK that allows application developers to serve a personal, tailor made experience for every user. Users will soon be able play music without their phones, via wearables made by i.am+. Founded in May 2014 by Noam Fine and Yossi Marouani and located in Bnei Brak, Sensiya currently has 25 employees. The startup’s investors include Yossi Vardi, Shlomo Nehama, Avi Shechter, and Stav Shacham.

May 2, 2016 | A 36-hour student hackathon called HackIDC will be held at Israel’s IDC Herzliya this week (May 6-7), where 250 students will compete to create an innovative technology. Students will work in teams of up to five people for thirty-six hours to create a web, mobile, or hardware product. The panel of judges is excepted to include some of Israel’s most renowned entrepreneurs: Dov Moran, Gil Shwed and Prof. Amnon Shashua. As Israel’s leading student hackathon, the annual event provides participants a unique opportunity to build something new and exciting, together with coding and design enthusiasts.

May 1, 2016 | Israeli-American company JFrog, which provides software developers with a binary repository management solution, is hiring 100 new employees.  Based in Israel and California, 50 of the new hires are for its Israel office in Netanya and the rest for its Silicon Valley office. JFrog’s clients include Apple, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google, The Gap and more.

May 1, 2016 |Chinese corporation Kuang-Chi is launching an international innovation fund based in Israel to invest in companies worldwide. The “Kuang-Chi GCI Fund & Incubator” will be the first Chinese fund of its kind, combining investment in early to mid-stage Israeli and global companies with incubation by Kuang-Chi. The newly established fund has an initial $50 million and is planned to grow to $300 million within the next three years. Founded in 2010 by five distinguished Chinese scientists who returned to China after earning advanced degrees at Duke, Oxford, and Cambridge universities, Kuang-Chi is a global innovation group with operations from China to North America, Europe, Africa and Oceania. Acting through public companies, private holdings and research institutes, the group’s value exceeds $10 billion.

April 26, 2016 | Israeli parking app Polly has launched in Paris, France, potentially helping 4.5 million Parisian drivers daily to find a parking spot. “Polly The Parking Fairy” aims to eliminate the frustration associated with finding a parking spot in the big city. The free mobile app emulates driver behavior and guarantees a parking space – whether in a lot or on the street – within 11 minutes of cruising. Polly comes into action as drivers approach their destination, displaying a personalized map and turn-by-turn navigation directions through nearby streets with the greatest chance of finding on-street parking. The route is based on statistical information about streets with the highest parking turnover. The app was created by Israeli startup sPARK, which was founded in 2012 by Zohar Bali and Eran Balter.

April 25, 2016 | Sirin Labs, a new high-end smartphone manufacturer, has raised a $72 million seed round from Israeli Singulariteam founder Moshe Hogeg, Kazakh businessman Kenges Rakishev, and the Chinese social networking service Renren to launch a new, secure smartphone. The phone will be revealed in May at Sirin Labs’ flagship store in London.  Sirin, a stealth startup almost three years in the making, aspires to combine both the safety of a military-grade device and the features of an everyday phone. Headquartered in Switzerland, most of Sirin’s day to day operations are managed from the company’s offices in Tel Aviv (R&D and operations) and in the Swedish city of Lund where they are assembled by Sigma Connectivity.

April 24, 2016 | Four Hebrew University faculty members are among the 213 new members to have been elected to The American Academy of Arts & Sciences (AAAS). The academy includes some of the world’s most accomplished scholars, scientists, writers, artists, as well as civic, business, and philanthropic leaders. The Hebrew University faculty selected are Prof. Robert Benny Gerber, The Saerree K. and Louis P. Fiedler Chair in Chemistry, in the Institute Of Chemistry; Prof. Sergiu Hart, The Alice Kusiel and Kurt Vorreuter University Professor, and Professor of Mathematics and Economics, in the Federmann Center for the Study of Rationality; Prof. Menachem  Magidor,  Professor Emeritus of Mathematics, in the Einstein Institute of Mathematics, and a Former President of the Hebrew University; and Prof. Zeev Sternhell, The Leon Blum Professor Emeritus of Political Science, in the Department of Political Science.  The new class will be inducted at a ceremony on October 8, 2016, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1780, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences is one of America’s oldest learned societies and independent policy research centers, convening leaders from the academic, business, and government sectors to respond to the challenges facing the nation and the world. Current Academy research focuses on higher education, the humanities, and the arts; science and technology policy; global security and energy; and American institutions and the public good.

April 21, 2016 | Israeli online fraud prevention company Forter has closed $32 million in Series C funding led by Scale Venture Partners, with participation from Series B investors Sequoia Capital and New Enterprise Associates (NEA). Headquartered in San Francisco, the company maintains its development center in Tel Aviv. Forter helps retailers prevent identity fraud, internet fraud and phone fraud and offers an automated, real-time Decision as a Service solution for online merchants. The company, which was founded in 2014 by CEO Michael Reitblat, COO Liron Damri and Chief Analyst Alon Shemesh, has raised $50 million with this latest financing round and has tripled in size since its founding.

April 21, 2016 | Inno-Negev, Ben-Gurion University’s technology accelerator, has successfully concluded its first cycle. Eleven new start-ups were unveiled at the concluding event held at WeWork in the Advanced Technologies Park in Beer-Sheva late last week. The accelerator has demonstrated its importance in promoting cutting-edge innovation and the strength of Beer-Sheva’s entrepreneurial community.  Demo Day showcased the fruits of Inno-Negev’s first cycle – 11 new startups in the fields of communication and information. These 11 initiatives were chosen from 130 teams, which included more than 300 entrepreneurs, most from Beer-Sheva and its environs. The entrepreneurs accepted included BGU students and alumni, alumni of elite IDF technology units and others. 

April 21, 2016 | Motorola Solutions has announced it is establishing a new Innovation Center in Israel. The new center will seek out startup investments in cyber security, mobile technologies, Internet-of-Things, big data analytics and more. Motorola Solutions Chairman and CEO Greg Brown made the announcement during a meeting in Israel with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Motorola Solutions Israel Ltd. is based in Airport City near Tel Aviv. The firm develops, manufactures and markets communications infrastructure, devices and solutions for public, private and other environments. Motorola has had a marketing presence in the country since 1948 and was one of the first multinational companies to set up an R&D center in Israel way back in 1964.

April 20, 2016 | Israeli online contract review platform LawGeex announced today $2.5 million in funding from Lool Ventures and LionBird and angel investors Eilon Tirosh and Rami Lipman. The startup has also launched its online contract review solution free of charge for consumers. Using machine learning, the Israeli startup sets out to “out-lawyer” the lawyers. LawGeex allows consumers to upload any type of contract to its platform and receive, within 24 hours, an in-depth report of what’s good, bad and even missing from their contract. Currently reviewing over 20 types of contracts, the free solution begins with employment agreements, with more contract types to be offered for free in the near future.