CTECH: Israel’s Latest Innovation & Technology News April 29, 2023
Pinecone hits $750 million valuation in $100 million round to build long-term memory for AI. The Israeli startup has seen its valuation increase more than four-fold in one year. Read more
Adtech startup YouAppi being acquired in $110 million deal. The Israeli company has developed a performance-based mobile app marketing and retargeting platform for app publishers and brands. Read more
Amazon axes dozens of jobs in Israel after shutting down Halo program. The tech behemoth said last month that it will lay off 9,000 more employees following an earlier round of layoffs that began in November which affected more than 18,000 staffers. Read more
Dropbox closing Israel R&D center as part of global cutbacks. The U.S. cloud storage provider is estimated to have employed around 50 people in Israel and it will be laying off all of them as part of a 16% reduction in its global workforce. Read more
NICE CEO: “Every conversation with investors starts with the madness of the Israeli government.” Barak Eilam discusses the existential threat the judicial coup poses to Israeli tech and why AI could be a huge growth engine for the company. Read more
Israeli high-tech must contend with the global economy and its own government to survive. The shrinking of Israeli high-tech comes amid the global economic downturn, but it is clear to those within the industry that without a return to political sanity, the industry and the Israeli economy will suffer. Read more
Ctrl raises $9 million to roll out its AI-powered workspace platform. Its platform integrates with CRMs like Salesforce and Hubspot, works with tools such as G-Suite, Slack, and Jira, and ‘brings all work apps together’. Read more
Mobileye shares plummet after Israeli company cuts revenue forecast. The Israel-based autonomous driving technology maker now expects revenue between $2.07 billion and $2.11 billion in 2023, compared with $2.19 billion and $2.28 billion estimated previously. Read more
Blink Charging acquiring electric car-sharing startup Envoy in $34 million deal. The Israeli-founded company developed a software and mobility service offering shared electric vehicles as an amenity to real estate developers and owners. Read more
High-tech’s new world order: Salaries falling, requirements rising, and nobody’s in a hurry to leave. The uncertainty, the layoffs, and the decrease in investments in high-tech have led to changes in the recruitment of employees. HR managers at companies that collectively employ thousands of workers in Israel tell Calcalist: This is how the recruitment processes have changed following the new reality. Read more
“We had to be commandos”: How Semperis became one of the fastest-growing companies in the world. Within nine years of its founding, Semperis has become one of the fastest-growing companies in the world, whose revenues are approaching the $100 million mark without connections or a background in the IDF’s technology units. This is the story behind Calcalist’s most promising startup for 2023. Read more
AI21 Labs: “It’s like the mobile revolution but maybe even bigger.” The explosion of new generation artificial intelligence, with ChatGPT becoming a household name, also boosted the business of AI21 Labs – with Amazon being just one of its new customers. Read more
Locusview: “We take a process that used to take nine months and complete it in 24 hours.” Locusview is not very well known in Israel, but in the US the company’s platform helps manage huge infrastructure projects, and synchronizes thousands of workers with incredible efficiency. Read more
Optibus CEO pauses to reflect one year after obtaining unicorn status. In the economically unstable year that has passed since Optibus was ranked number one on Calcalist’s annual list of the most promising Israeli startups, the company has doubled its revenues and workforce. Read more
Opinion | Monday takeaway: “The future of the Startup Nation is in our hands.” As Israel celebrates 75 years of independence, monday.com co-founders Eran Zinman and Roy Mann share their vision for the country. Read more
Opinion | Startup nation must grow up. The transition from a development-based start-up nation to a high-tech country that is home to the management of international companies is already happening. But first, we must solve this current crisis. Read more
The 50 most promising Israeli startups – 2023. With the fall in venture capital investments removing the background noise, this year’s list of the 50 most promising Israeli startups highlights the companies with a real profit model. Read more
“We had to be commandos”: How Semperis became one of the fastest-growing companies in the world. Within nine years of its founding, Semperis has become one of the fastest-growing companies in the world, whose revenues are approaching the $100 million mark without connections or a background in the IDF’s technology units. This is the story behind Calcalist’s most promising startup for 2023. Read more
AI21 Labs: “It’s like the mobile revolution but maybe even bigger.” The explosion of new generation artificial intelligence, with ChatGPT becoming a household name, also boosted the business of AI21 Labs – with Amazon being just one of its new customers. Read more
Locusview: “We take a process that used to take nine months and complete it in 24 hours.” Locusview is not very well known in Israel, but in the US the company’s platform helps manage huge infrastructure projects, and synchronizes thousands of workers with incredible efficiency. Read more
Israeli spyware industry is shrinking amidst global backlash. The closure of QuaDream is further evidence of the shrinking of the world-leading Israeli cyber espionage industry. Most of the Israeli companies that were active in the field have closed or left the sector in the last year also due to the restriction of export permits by the Ministry of Defense. Read more
Ever-evolving Israeli Generative AI landscape – the updated map. “The talent pool, combined with Israeli entrepreneurs’ high disregard of the impossible and an active early stage investment ecosystem, make us optimistic about the future of this space in Israel,” write Eze Vidra and Kevin Baxpehler of Remagine Ventures. Read more
Talent marketplace Gloat lays off 12% of team. The Israeli startup, which raised $90 million in a Series D in June 2022, will part ways with around 35 employees. Read more
Hub Security investigating suspicions that founder and former CEO was embezzling company funds. Eyal Moshe was ousted in February by new CEO Uzi Moskowitz. The cyber company’s current market cap is just $118 million – a far cry from the $1.28 billion valuation at which its SPAC merger was signed. Read more
Vesey Ventures launches $78 million debut fund, eyes Israel as critical market. Former AMEX Ventures Managing Directors launch fund to invest in early-stage fintech companies. Read more
Analysis | Will the cybersecurity party come to an end in 2023? “Enterprises now seek to rationalize their large and often overlapping security stacks and expect cybersecurity startups to provide them with quantifiable ROI. This can be challenging for early-stage companies – especially given the abundance of similar solutions,” writes Nofar Schnider of StageOne Ventures. Read more
Akamai acquiring API security startup Neosec. The cloud company will pay several dozen millions of dollars for the Israeli startup founded just three years ago. Read more
WalkMe axes another 112 employees, reducing workforce by a further 10%. This is the company’s second round of layoffs in 2023 after parting ways with 43 employees in January. Read more
Meta cuts 90 jobs in Israel as part of global layoffs. After the first wave last month included mainly employees from the HR departments, this time employees from a wide variety of fields, including programmers and engineers, were let go. Read more
Electronic Arts closing R&D center in Israel, laying off entire team. Dozens of employees will lose their job as part of the global cutbacks at EA, which will include a total of more than 700 employees, accounting for 6% of the video game publisher’s workforce. Read more
CropX closes $30 million Series C for digital farm management system. The Israeli startup’s agronomic farm management system synthesizes data from the earth and sky to offer advanced soil and crop intelligence and a suite of digital decision and planning tools. Read more
Photonic quantum computing startup Quantum Source extends Seed round to $27 million. The $12 million extension from Dell Technologies Capital makes it one of the largest Seed rounds for Quantum Computing. Read more
Cloud infrastructure startup Volumez raises $20 million Series A. Volumez’s controller-less architecture composes direct Linux data paths between media and applications, helping companies convert knowledge into intelligence quickly and at scale. Read more
“Humans and machines have found a common language to interact with.” Kubiya.ai CEO Amit Eyal Govrin discusses his “ChatGPT for DevOps” and the future of operations. Read more
