CTECH – Latest Israeli Innovation & Technology News Dec. 6, 2022
Cybersecurity unicorn Aqua axes 10% of workforce. The Israeli cloud security company will be laying off 65 employees in total. Read more
DataRails lays off 18% of team. The financial planning and analysis platform is parting with 30 employees. Read more
Startup Santa to sack most of its employees. “With a heavy heart we decided that we need to take a few steps back, reduce our burn to near-zero, and use the next few months to completely rethink our direction,” wrote CEO Roee Adler. Read more
Lone wolf: Oren Zeev reveals why he’s the world’s most successful lone investor. The one-man VC fund opens up on the bursting tech bubble, why he was disgusted by what he saw last year, and what’s coming next. “When good entrepreneurs want you because they believe you have a golden touch it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy,” explained Zeev. Read more
The friends who will help the Nano Dimension CEO take over the company. Yoav Stern insists on repricing his options, even though, according to consulting companies, the move should worry shareholders. That’s how it goes when a CEO buys a company owned by the chairman of the remuneration committee who will now authorize his take over of Nano Dimension. Read more
Coastline conundrum: “We are trying to find a new sector, a new opportunity of developing the blue economy.” Marine biologist Rotem Trivizki takes CTech on a deep dive into how Atarim and Migdalor are harnessing Israel’s greatest natural resource – the sea – for everyone’s benefit. Read more
2022 VC Survey | Expect more VC scrutiny in 2023, says Hyperwise Ventures. The VC firm has joined CTech to share its views on the VC space. Read more
Redis announces CEO transition, appoints Rowan Trollope to replace Ofer Bengal. Trollope joins Redis from Five9, where he served as CEO for over four years. Bengal co-founded Redis in 2011 with Yiftach Shoolman and has served as its CEO since its inception. Read more
Israel’s Rafael, Lockheed Martin team up to develop laser weapon system. The companies plan to produce a new version of the Iron Beam, which is expected to be the first-ever operational system for ground-based air defense against threats such as rockets, mortars and UAV’s. Read more
Opinion | The Great Resignation or the Great Rethink? “Despite companies verbalizing the need for greater internal development and agility, the lack of action has left employees to continue wondering if their futures could be brighter somewhere else,” writes Danny Shteinberg, Co-Founder, CMO & CPO, at Gloat. Read more
“You can’t be an entrepreneur and be too nervous about the future.” Eureka co-founder and CEO Liat Hayun has joined CTech to share what it’s like being a CEO during the turbulent tech times. Read more
Pratt & Whitney shutting down Blades Technology Israel factory, putting 900 people out of work. The company’s employees were notified on Sunday that American aerospace manufacturer Pratt & Whitney, which is a subsidiary of Raytheon Technologies, has decided to stop manufacturing compressor blades in Nahariya due to a drop in demand. Read more
2022 VC Survey | “We expect to see a 10%-15% reduction in the total compensation of R&D employees.” IBI Tech Fund has joined CTech to explore its macroeconomic predictions in the VC space as we approach 2023. Read more
Israeli platform GK8 escapes Celsius debacle after being acquired by Galaxy Digital. The Israeli company’s platform provides financial institutions an on-premise end-to-end platform for safekeeping and managing digital assets. Read more
CTalk | “There are so many vulnerabilities in tech coming from marketing.” “We try to protect every attack vector relevant to your marketing team, bots for example or your competitors looking into your platform,” explained Guy Tytunovich, CEO and Co-founder at CHEQ. Watch full interview
“We are missing professional investors to help climatech entrepreneurs find the right path.” “We are currently seeing huge amounts of qualified entrepreneurs that are entering climatech,” said Zafrir Yoeli, Co-founder and Managing Partner at the Gravity Climate fund. Watch full interview
“We need a platform to authenticate what is being said online.” “We were selected to authenticate all the bots and spam accounts on Twitter. We looked at millions of profiles and found around 11% to be fake accounts, and that is just from a random sample,” said Assaf Danby, VP Global Sales at Cyabra. Watch full interview
Kira Radinsky: “Our goal is to touch more people’s lives and every story is important.” “A lot of patient visits to physicians could be prevented,” added Dr. Radinsky, CEO and Co-founder of Diagnostic Robotics. Watch full interview
Opinion | Why DPI is king. “If ‘cash is king’ for businesses, ‘DPI is king’ for LPs. In order to best predict the success of the current generations of funds, you should take a close look at their current DPI,” writes Erez Shachar, Managing Partner at Qumra Capital. Read more
Bizzabo laying off another 100 employees, cutting almost 40% of remaining workforce. Five months ago the event planning platform parted with 120 employees, meaning it has cut more than half of its team since July. Read more
Lumen raises $62 million to measure metabolism through breath. The subscription service includes an app and a device which reveals the state of the user’s metabolism and shows the impact of nutrition and lifestyle on the body. Read more
BeeHero raises $42 million Series B for precision pollination platform. The Israeli startup uses advanced data analytics, AI, and low-cost IoT sensors to bring transparency and efficiency to the complex logistics of commercial crop pollination. Read more
Workplace intelligence platform Shield snags $20 million Series B. The Israeli startup’s solution allows organizations of any size to mitigate risks, improve operational efficiency, and reduce compliance costs. Read more
CyVers raises $8 million to secure blockchain transactions. The Israeli startup’s solution captures transactions during the few moments between the time a transaction is broadcasted and when it is registered irreversibly to a blockchain ledger. Read more
eToro co-founder: “We are seeing investors move from crypto to bonds and shares.” “Taking the latest collapses and making assumptions regarding the entire crypto industry is wrong,” noted Ronen Assia, Co-founder of eToro and a Partner at investment fund Team8 Fintech. Read more
2022 VC Survey | Peregrine Ventures: “2022 seems to be a wake-up year to reality.” The firm spoke to CTech about what this year meant for investment and how next year might change. Read more
Transportation ministry shutting down shuttle services in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. The Bubble and TikTak services powered by local public transport companies Dan and Egged and ridesharing startup Via will be terminated due to an unsatisfactory number of passengers. Read more
CTalk | “We need to find the balance between leveraging innovative AI solutions and using them cautiously.” “People are wondering how we can give over our power to machines? The answer is that humans make mistakes too,” added Hilla Peled, VP Data Science at Riskified. Watch full video
“Personality and distribution are becoming more important than the product.” “You want to meet your customers where they are and communicate with them through tools they are comfortable with,” explained Liron Wand, Venture Partner at Pitango Growth. Watch full video
Fiverr CEO: “We had to downsize. It was the right step to take in a market where growth has become difficult.” “I think this crisis is more serious than its predecessors because money has been printed for 10 years,” added Micha Kaufman, Founder and CEO of Fiverr. Read more
Google VP: “We can predict natural disasters before they occur.” “Artificial intelligence has undergone a revolution in recent years, this is not an exaggeration,” said Yossi Matias, VP at Google and Managing Director of Google’s R&D center in Israel. Read more
Nectin Therapeutics raises $25 million Series A to treat advanced cancer tumors. The Israeli company is aiming to achieve new standards for efficacy and patient response across a number of difficult-to-treat cancers. Read more
Symphony acquires Israeli NLP startup Amenity Analytics. The cost of the acquisition is estimated at tens of millions of dollars, but investors are only set to receive a partial return on their funding. Read more
2022 VC Survey | “All of us were winners this year,” says Fusion. Don’t believe the hype – we are seeing normalization despite the downturns this year, say Yair Vardi and Guy Katsovich. Read more
CTalk | “AI technology is only as good as the brain behind it.” “AI helps us give the right price and evaluate risk properly using third party sources such as tenants, board members, etc,” explained Nimrod Sadot, Co-Founder and CTO of Honeycomb Insurance. Watch full video
“Consumers are looking for ‘one tap’ flexibility.” “The world is moving online, and we are behind the scenes processing your orders,” noted Max Attias, CTO at Nuvei. Watch full video
“We help organizations gain control of their chaotic data.” “We help companies access external data points and when you have more data you can access risk more accurately,” added Yossi Tal, Co-founder and Co-CEO at Seenity. Watch full video
“Great companies are established during years of crisis.” “During these times secondary becomes one of the major sources of liquidity in the market and we are seeing substantial increase in our dealflow,” added Dror Glass, Co-founder and managing partner at Israel Secondary Fund. Watch full video
“Digital is not a project, it’s a way of life.” “We want to understand the customer journey and better understand their needs,” said Noam Seemann, VP, Head of Digital Transformation at Phoenix Insurance. Watch full video
“2023 will be an inflection point.” “There is a recession in Europe and we are expecting it in the U.S. soon,” added Mark Andersen, Co-head Global Asset Allocation at UBS. Watch full video
