CTECH – Israel’s Latest Technology and Innovation News
Israeli startups raise record $25.6 billion in 2021. Local companies recorded more than 77 mega-rounds of over $100 million last year, more than double of 2019 and 2020 combined. Read more
Stripe launches Israel operations ahead of entrance into local market. The company appointed Arnon Barzilay to oversee its Israel office and is in the process of recruiting talent in the country. Read more
Elbit Systems seals $53 million contract with UAE to supply aircraft
and self-protection systems. The DIRCM system will be under contract for five years for the UAE Air Force. Read more
CTech’s Book Review: Understanding the continued process of learning. Guy Flechter, CEO and Co-Founder at Cider Security, shares insights
after reading “What Have You Changed Your Mind About? Today’s Leading
Minds Rethink Everything” by John Brockman. Read more
Appointments | Frontegg appoints Shelly Fischer Egoz and Stav Aldaag to executive positions. Egoz will be the new VP People and Aldaag has joined as VP Product. Read more
Spotlight | Shopping while playing is Sayollo’s game. Focusing on Gen-Z gamers, the Israeli startup’s CMO Adi Itach says its in-game marketplace platform, gComm, is “the future of commerce and gaming, as a hybrid of these two worlds.” Read more
Opinion | Open banking is conquering the world, but in Israel there is still a long road ahead. “Open banking is a huge economic opportunity
that offers regeneration and the building of new sources of income for banks and commercial companies,” writes Tal Weiser of Finastra. Read more
Cleantech company Tipa raises $70 million for compostable flexible
packaging. The Israeli company’s packaging is able to emulate the properties of plastic in protecting food and other goods, but at its end-of-life the products decompose and return to nature via composting. Read more
eToro’s valuation dips over 15% to $8.8 billion after amended SPAC
deal. The deadline for the Israeli fintech company’s merger with the Betsy Cohen-backed blank-check company has been pushed to the end of June 2022 after being initially announced in March 2021. Read more
JFrog: “Companies that won’t adopt cybersecurity defense won’t stay in business.” Moran Ashkenazi joined CTech to share how JFrog’s new cybersecurity measures will be inherent to every company one day. Read more
Interview | The Israeli startup using spatial biology to provide better cancer treatment. Nucleai is looking at the way cells interplay and are interspersed within human tissue to develop precision medicine solutions. Read more
Israel’s Zoog partners with Snap to expand its AR services. Zoog has
developed a children’s videobook creation platform to help bridge generation gaps for families. Read more
Opinion | The age of hyper-accelerated AI adoption. “2021 has brought
significant advances in AI and in the next year this momentum will drive humanity even further,” writes Michael Kagan, Chief Technology Officer of NVIDIA. Read more
Nir Zuk comes under fire after saying techies should be heavily taxed. The founder of Palo Alto suggested increasing taxes for high-earning
tech employees in order to bridge the gaps in Israeli society, but CEO
of Rapyd Arik Shtilman called him out, claiming taxes are one of the
reasons for the sector’s workforce shortage. Read more
SundaySky targeting $300 million Tel Aviv IPO. The Israeli company,
which developed a platform allowing organizations of all sizes to produce, distribute, and optimize video at scale, is aiming to finally go public 14 years after it was founded. Read more
Secondary tech deals are transforming Israel’s economy. Hundreds of
millions of dollars from secondary-share deals went into the pockets of employees, investors, and entrepreneurs in 2021, changing the face of the tech industry, as well as the local economy. Read more
The year Israeli cyber-wars leveled up. The inflation in Israeli cybersecurity companies with similar products created fierce competition between the industry’s top names. Read more
Wanted: A booster of humbleness for 2022. “Let’s be more humble, not
only in our pretension to make forecasts, but also in life itself,” says Calcalist Publisher Yoel Esteron. Read more
Appointments | ActiveFence appoints Itai Brezis as EVP of Corporate
Development and Strategy. Before joining ActiveFence, Brezis was VP of
Strategy at NICE where he led the digital transformation and transition of NICE to the cloud. Read more
Opinion | 9 trends we’ll see happen next year in Israel and across the globe. “Israel is always top of mind when I do my annual predictions,”
writes Jason Williamson, VP at Oracle for Startups and Oracle for
Research. Read more
“The markets still haven’t reached their peak,” says Blackstone
president. Jon Gray, President of Blackstone, talks exclusively to Calcalist about current risks to markets around the world and discusses what types of investments his firm is looking at. Read more
New digital health accelerator launched in Haifa. The accelerator is
looking for Israeli startups in the fields of cybersecurity and medical information, diagnostic monitoring and remote medical treatment, medical equipment, detection, and prevention of dangerous and other diseases. Read more
Analysis | The year in which the gap between techies and the rest
turned into a chasm. “Rather than left-right, Arabs-Jews, yes Bibi-no Bibi, the tech industry has become the new sector which you either hate or belong to,” writes Elihay Vidal. Read more
“Lasers will change the future battlefield,” says Air Force commander. Speaking at the 2022 Forecasts Conference, Maj. Gen. Amikam Nurkin discussed cooperating with the U.S., and future challenges, “we want to get to a place where we know what is happening around us in space.” Read more
Opinion | Time for tech to open up to creative worlds. “As the elitist
industry grows so will the need for workers who possess a more complex and broad set of capabilities and interests stemming from more creative, spiritual, artistic worlds,” writes Leehee Yaron-Gerti of CodeValue. Read more
“If Wiz is worth $6 billion, Palo Alto is worth more than a trillion.”
Unicorns are galloping into the abyss, Israel’s cybersecurity infrastructure is broken, and offensive cyber companies are doing business with criminals. Palo Alto may have entered the Nasdaq-100, but that is not going to hold back founder Nir Zuk. Read more
Nas Daily: “The institution is getting weaker and the individual is
getting stronger.” Arab Israeli vlogger Nas Daily spoke with CTech about the creator economy and Israel’s place on the influencer stage. Read more
The startups creating the smart cities and mobility solutions of
tomorrow. Meet the five Israeli startups selected by an expert panel to be the next big thing in the smart city and mobility sectors. Read more
Israel’s SavorEat presents its plant-based burgers to the general
public. Burger-based franchise chain BBB Group will serve the patties at some of their 100 locations across the country. Read more
The Israeli startup bringing the live broadcast revolution to every
smartphone. Omnistream wants to provide every smartphone owner with what LiveU has been selling for decades to broadcast stations worldwide – a stable and high-quality video stream. Read more
Neuromarketing research startup raises $1.25 million Seed round to
track consumer emotions. Mobileye founder Amnon Shashua and the CEO of the Victory supermarket chain are among those investing in Drill, which monitors real-time implied responses of customers while shopping. Read more
BiblioTech | CTech’s Book Review: An analysis in human behavior, risk, and systems thinking. Dotan Nahum, CEO at Spectral, shares insights
after reading “The Field Guide to Understanding Human Error” by Sidney
Dekker. Read more
