CTECH – Israel’s Latest Innovation and Technology News Aug. 25, 2022
Real estate platform Reali shutting down operations. The Israeli-founded startup raised a $100 million Series B just one year ago. Read more
Cyberstarts closes new $60 million Seed fund. The Israeli cybersecurity-focused VC firm’s first fund showed a weighted annual return to investors of 300% and its portfolio companies raised a total of $2 billion in 2021, with a combined valuation of $20 billion. Read more
Will Israeli startups pay the price for Tiger Global’s losses? The giant VC suffered heavy losses in the first half of the year and didn’t benefit from the recent surge after selling a significant portion of its holdings, thus also limiting its flexibility in investing in Israeli tech. Read more
IP protection might just save the tech companies from their crisis. In a climate where companies are cutting costs, one thing is worth holding on to: your patents. Read more
Bankrupt Celsius sues ex-money manager over tens of millions in losses. The collapsed crypto lender is accusing Jason Stone and his company KeyFi of “gross negligence” and “extraordinarily inept” crypto investing. Read more
US, Israel sign deal to combat ransomware, protect critical financial infrastructure. The U.S. Deputy Secretary of the Treasury and Israel’s Finance Minister agreed to set up a task force to support fintech innovation and cybersecurity last year and the new partnership will see the parties conduct a bilateral exercise later this year. Read more
CTech’s Book Review: Finding your WHY in business and in life. Ella Vidra, VP of IT Ops and Engineering at Playtika, shares insights after reading “Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action” by Simon Sinek. Read more
Giving them props: The startups innovating the property management sector. Proptech innovation returned to the headlines following WeWork founder Adam Neumann’s surprising comeback last week, raising $350 million for his new real estate firm Flow. Meanwhile, dozens of Israeli startups are entering the sector, including a number focused on property management. Read more
Is the Pagaya bubble bursting? The Israeli fintech company has lost almost a quarter of its value over the past week, falling beneath a market cap of $11 billion. Read more
Rookout raises $16 million Series B for developer-first observability platform. The Israeli startup’s platform can collect any piece of data from live code, helping engineers to solve customer issues faster, improve development velocity, and reduce MTTR. Read more
Hitting the wall: Wall Street’s IPO market suffering its worst year since 2009. From a record year to a down year – hundreds of private companies are afraid of going public and receiving a low valuation. Only $5.1 billion has been raised to date compared to $100 billion at the same stage last year. Read more
Opinion | 8 things an Israeli startup must know about the UK market. “This list is a macro-level review of the important aspects that will provide Israeli entrepreneurs and startups with insight before attempting to join the UK market,” explains Whichit CEO Jonathan Gan. Read more
After cutbacks and CEO departure, what’s next for the controversial NSO? The surveillance firm, which makes Pegasus software, has been contending with legal action after allegations that its tools were misused by governments and other agencies to hack mobile phones. Read more
Report: 85% of American businesses will implement a ‘hiring freeze’ amid ongoing economic downturn. A majority of businesses say they will instead rely on freelance talent to fill in the gaps in their workforce. Read more
AccessiBe raises $30 million to make websites accessible. The Israeli company, which has raised $58 million to date, develops artificial intelligence solutions for automating the process of making websites accessible to people with visual, hearing, and motor disabilities. Read more
“The fact we are female founders gave us motivation to keep going.” In an interview with CTech, Tamar Liberman, CEO & co-founder of It’s July, explains the importance of pivoting, how the high-tech ecosystem has changed, as well as her plans for the U.S. market. Read more
Final cut: Israeli-owned movie theater chain Cineworld preparing to file for bankruptcy. The second largest cinema chain in the world is crashing, with its stock collapsing by 82% in three London trading days. The chain, which failed to recover from the pandemic at the rate it expected, has accumulated a debt of $9 billion. Read more
Power of powder: Solein seeks to shake up food industry. From a small laboratory in the suburbs of Helsinki, Dr. Pasi Vainikka, CEO of Solar Foods, is about to create a historic revolution in the world of food: a protein powder that is made of 95% air – without a single gram of soil, and with zero ecological footprint – and it’s healthy too. Read more
What recession? Israeli startups raise over $700 million in 48 hours. Mega-rounds by DriveNets, Guesty, HiBob, and Pliops brought in a massive $682 million. Read more
“I enter a room as an entrepreneur, CEO and co-founder, not as a woman.” In an interview with CTech, Racheli Danziger, co-founder & CEO at Detopp, shares her bootstrapped path to success and why she thinks gender doesn’t matter. Read more
Groundwork BioAg completes $18 million Series B round to decarbonize mainstream agriculture. The company leverages the natural power of mycorrhizal fungi to improve the productivity and profitability of commercial agriculture. Read more
Nice reports significant growth in revenue and profit, increases forecast for 2022. The enterprise software company said that its second quarter total revenues increased 16.1% to $530.6 million while its gross profit for Q2 was $365.7 million. Read more
CTech’s Book Review: Let’s examine the Entrepreneurial Operating System. Sivan Tehila, Founder and CEO at Onyxia, shares insights after reading “Traction: Get A Grip On Your Business” by Gino Wickman. Read more
Opinion | Insurers must embrace technology – strategically. As in many other industries where digitization has taken hold, insurance tech shouldn’t be adopted just for its own sake, writes Alex Zukerman, Chief Strategy Officer at Sapiens. Read more
