CTECH: Latest Israeli Innovation & Technology News Oct. 25, 2022
Cyber unicorn Snyk to sack 198 employees, 14% of workforce. The Israeli-founded company raised $530 million at an $8.5 billion valuation last year. Read more
Layoffs in Israeli high-tech intensify as Jewish holiday season comes to an end. High-tech companies in Israel hoped the financial situation might improve by the end of the Jewish holiday period, but their wishes did not come true, leaving them to make cuts in order to make it to 2023. Read more
Google and Reichman University to establish school of high-tech. Courses will include core academic studies, combined with up-to-date professional training in the industry. Underrepresented populations will have an equal opportunity to join the program regardless of their financial ability to pay for the course. Read more
Data-sharing is caring: Lynx MD Partners with Ministry of Health. Part of the MOH’s Kinneret Project, the collaboration will enable health centers across Israel to leverage the startup’s medical intelligence platform to securely share data and collaborate with MedTech, Pharmaceutical and AI researchers. Read more
Third Point Ventures opens office in Tel Aviv. TPV has made six investments in Israel since 2015, including SentinelOne, Verbit, Next Silicon, Trullion, and Forter. Read more
Boarding Pass | “Consumers are curious about today’s meat alternatives, but they aren’t satisfied with them.” Israeli startup Meat.The End has raised $4 million to help with the texture of alternative meat. Read more
CTech’s Book Review: A cautionary tale for the tech scene. Esther Shatz, VP Consultancy and Product Marketing at Storemaven, shares insights after reading “Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup” by John Carreyrou. Read more
Opinion | Creating a ripple effect to boost Israel’s climate-tech sector. “Activating MNCs to explore the Israeli ecosystem from the climate perspective may have the single strongest effect to encourage more of our entrepreneurs and more of our VC community to choose climate tech,” writes Yael Weisz Zilberman of Start-Up Nation Central. Read more
OrCam lays off 16% of workforce. Amnon Shashua and Ziv Aviram’s artificial vision startup is sacking a total of 62 employees. Read more
Antidote axes a third of its employees. The company, which develops a telehealth platform for the U.S. market, is cutting its Israeli R&D staff by half. Read more
Investments in Israeli tech down 30% in first three quarters of 2022. In the first nine months of the year, Israeli tech companies raised $12.3 billion, 30% less than in the first three quarters of last year, but still the second-largest amount ever in this period. Read more
Cybereason looking for buyer after IPO falls through. According to The Information, the Israeli cybersecurity unicorn, currently valued at $2.5 billion, has abandoned its plan to go public and is seeking a sale instead. Read more
Mapping the Israeli contech landscape. There are around 100 startups in Israel active in the construction tech sector, with VC funding growing from a few million in 2018 to half a billion in the first half of 2022 alone, according to Viola Ventures. Read more
“There’s almost no important medical technology that’s not completely Israeli or has a big Israeli component.” In an in-depth exclusive interview, Eyal Lifschitz, co-founder & managing general partner of Peregrine Ventures, Israel’s first dedicated healthcare VC fund, gets to the heart of Israeli medtech and where it’s headed. Read more
“Hybrid work is not harming effectiveness.” According to Gal Shaul, one of the founders of Augury, “if you are able to achieve some kind of balance that suits you, then working hours are not important.” Read more
Palo Alto in negotiations to acquire Cider Security for $200 million. The Israeli startup, which develops an AppSec operating system, has raised $38 million to date. Palo Alto was close to acquiring Israeli cybersecurity company Apiiro before the deal fell through in recent weeks. Read more
Palo Alto deal to acquire Apiiro falls through. Negotiations between the cybersecurity giant and the Israeli startup had been ongoing over recent months, but differences regarding Apiiro’s valuation in the deal ultimately proved to be too difficult to overcome. Read more
MUFG Bank to invest another $250 million in Liquidity Group. Israeli-founded Liquidity signed earlier this year an agreement to set up a massive $2 billion investment fund in partnership with Japan’s MUFG Bank. Read more
National Grid investing in Israeli startup Exodigo. The investment, estimated to be several millions of dollars, came on the back of Exodigo successfully deploying its subsurface mapping solutions at National Grid sites in New York. Read more
Hashomer Hachadash launches investment company, raises $20 million for agritech fund. The investment company, named Eretz Noshevat, aims to invest in profitable, sustainable and young agriculture. Read more
Tensorleap announces $5.2 million Seed round for its debugging and explainability platform. The company’s platform helps data scientists understand how a neural network interprets data, how it makes decisions, and where and why it failed. Read more
Mobileye is seeking autonomy from Intel at all costs. Mobileye’s IPO will be the largest ever by an Israeli company, yet it is still disappointing as the company will go public at the same value at which it was acquired by Intel 5 years ago, even though revenues have doubled. Read more
Google launches new Cloud Region in Israel. Last year, Google Cloud was selected by the Israeli government to provide cloud services to government ministries. Read more
Team8 expands into digital health with new $80 million foundry. Team8 Health plans to build 6-8 digital healthcare companies over the next five years, investing $5-$10 million in Seed funding in each company. Read more
Temperature rising: A glimpse behind management’s door during the Celsius collapse. With the fall of the crypto company and the resignation of two of its founders, the problematic behavior of its executives becomes more exposed. A murky picture emerges of a company that doesn’t know how to manage risks or their customers’ money, while managers withdrew millions while begging customers not to. Read more
Israel to issue government bonds on a blockchain. The Israel Ministry of Finance and the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange have established a joint team with VMware and Fireblocks to perform a Proof of Concept for the issuance of government bonds on a blockchain platform. Read more
BrainPOP’s mind-blowing deal: Israeli founder nets $875 million from deal with Lego. The edtech company, founded by former pediatrician and immunologist Avraham Kadar, develops short, animated movies for kids that aim to make complicated and sometimes intimidating ideas simple and clear. Read more
Mobileye settles for just $16 billion valuation in Wall Street IPO. Intel’s Israeli self-driving car unit was targeting a $50 billion valuation earlier this year before the rout in tech compelled many high-flying companies to stomach haircuts in valuation. Read more
Microsoft makes further cuts after growth slowdown. The software giant has laid off hundreds of employees due to the worsening economic climate. The latest layoffs aren’t expected to impact the company’s Israeli employees. Read more
Opinion | Thanks to cyber, Microsoft is keeping its Israeli employees – for the time being. Even though the cyber center of the technology giant is located in Israel, in the event of a worsening recession in the U.S., its employees and the employees of the company’s R&D center in Israel will also face layoffs. Read more
Kubiya raises $6 million in Seed for conversational AI assistants in DevOps. The company’s conversational AI tool helps organizational users with a self-serving option that allows them to express intent in natural language and have the virtual assistant take action by automating simpler tasks. Read more
Demand for Israeli unicorn shares plummeted in 2022. EquityBee’s unicorn stock ranking revealed that most of the recent stars have disappeared from the list which ranks shares sought by investors who trade in private companies, with only four Israeli unicorns making the list: Houzz, Wiz, Gong and TripActions. Read more
Quantum Leap: “The big bang of quantum computing will come in this decade.” Prof. Dario Gil, head of IBM Research, is at the forefront of the quantum computing revolution, which is about to fundamentally change our world. In an exclusive interview, he explains what are the challenges that have delayed the realization of this dream, why you need to be an Einstein to understand it, and when we’ll finally start using it ourselves. Read more
“The high-tech sector has become malignant.” “VC’s are betting on the megalomaniacal narcissists and that creates a disgusting industry,” added serial entrepreneur Revital Hendler, who co-founded BreezoMeter but insists she has no regrets about missing out on its big exit, and explains what entrepreneurs should do so they no longer have to lie to investors to receive funding. Read more
“The main issue is not succeeding or failing, it is feeling that you did something you are proud of.” Danielle Dafni, CEO & Co-founder of Peech.ai, shares her vision for video and her tips for success. Read more
UK-Israel relationship to hit new heights amid rocky times. National security, Brexit, and innovation are all reasons why the UK and Israel have been reassessing their trade relationship, explained Matthew Salter, Director at the Department for International Trade in the UK Embassy. Read more
Israel’s HomeBiogas wins World Sustainability Award. The company won the award in the field of Circular Economy for its waste-to-energy solutions that tackle climate change. Read more
Opinion | Three possible reasons female entrepreneurship is not where it should be. While interviewing numerous female role models in tech, three answers continued to resurface in regard to where female gender bias comes from and how we can beat it. Read more
Enigmatic chip developer Banias Labs acquired for $240 million by Alphawave. The Israeli startup, co-founded by veteran entrepreneur Avigdor Willenz, develops coherent optical DSP semiconductor technology for data centers. Read more
IronVest raises $23 million Seed round to protect personal online security and privacy through biometrics. The Israeli company’s solution uses decentralized biometric fraud prevention technology to ensure only the correct person can access the most sensitive accounts and data during sign-in and throughout a session. Read more
SecuriThings nets $21 million Series B to automate protection of physical security devices. The Israeli startup’s platform provides real-time visibility, protection, and predictive maintenance capabilities for IoT devices. Read more
TaTiO raises $5.3 million Seed to help understaffed companies access America’s untapped workforce. The Israeli worktech company utilizes an AI-powered job simulation platform to find and pair qualified, and often disadvantaged, candidates with the right job. Read more
33N Ventures launches for investment in cybersecurity and infrastructure companies. New European VC 33N Ventures has sights on Israeli cybersecurity and infrastructure startups. Read more
CTech’s Book Review: Maximize your marketing with stellar storytelling. Jenny Drezin, VP of Communications at Practicum, shares insights after reading “Building a StoryBrand: Clarify Your Message So Customers Will Listen” by Donald Miller. Read more
TripActions raises $300 million at $9.2 billion valuation, eyes IPO in 2023. The travel-tech company raised $154 million in equity from new and existing financial investors, as well as a $150 million structured capital transaction led by Coatue. Read more
Creator investment platform Exceed raises $8 million Seed round. The startup aims to help fans and investors gain access to the highly gate-kept world of talent investment, while artists can leverage their greatest resource and conduct a real offering of shares through an IPO. Read more
Continue AI launches sustainability intelligence platform with $5.7 million Seed round. The Israeli startup aims to build the largest sustainability database in the world to help leading companies reach their sustainability goals using actionable insights and action plans. Read more
Investment in Israeli startups plummeted by 36% in third quarter. The drop in funding year-on-year was over 50%, with a sharp increase being registered in extension rounds by companies aiming to avoid downrounds. Read more
Intel reportedly plans to cut thousands of jobs as early as this month. According to Bloomberg News, the giant chipmaker is planning to cut costs in the face of a slowdown in the personal computer market. Intel-owned Israeli artificial intelligence chip developer Habana Labs announced on Tuesday that it was laying off around 100 employees. Read more
Elbit Systems lands $107 million order to supply night vision systems for the U.S. Army. The Enhanced Night Vision Goggle – Binocular (ENVG-B) system integrates powerful night vision capabilities and head-up situational awareness. Read more
Israeli startup Atriis named by Dutch government as its global travel platform. The news comes following the acquisition of reTravel.io earlier this year. Read more
“Israelis have the desire to feel like they are the smartest ones in the room. But that hinders learning.” Prof. Adam Grant, an organizational psychologist who has advised top executives from Elon Musk to Jeff Bezos, provides an eye-opening explanation as to why it is so difficult for us to admit our mistakes and how we can fix it. Read more
