Israeli healthtech startups raised $2.8 billion in 2022, but tech crisis threatens growth. While healthtech is not immune to the overall macroeconomic environment, it proved to be more resilient in 2022, with capital raised in the sector declining by just 13% compared to other high-tech sectors which experienced a collective decline of 43%. Read more

“Moody’s announcement is an opportunity to rethink our path,” says outgoing chairperson of Securities Authority. Anat Guetta added that “ignoring possible risks to the stability of the corporate governance of the State of Israel undermines confidence in the Israeli market among investors.” Read more

Capitola secures $15.6 million Series A for marketplace for commercial insurance. Led by Munich Re Ventures, this round will be used to grow Capitola’s platform with an emphasis on its market intelligence capabilities. Read more

SafeGuard raises $8 million for its AI solution to automate decision-making in construction zones. In the US alone, three workers die each day on the job in the construction industry, with injuries taking place roughly every three minutes. Read more

Floodlight raises $6.4 million to simplify finance for e-commerce SMEs and entrepreneurs. The company helps e-commerce SMEs connect financial platforms into one dashboard to manage their finances more efficiently and help them grow their business. Read more

Offensive cyber company QuaDream shutting down amidst spyware accusations. It was reported last week that the Israeli firm’s hacking tools have been used against journalists, opposition figures and advocacy organizations across at least 10 countries. Read more

Pagaya suspends full immediate withdrawals from Opportunity Fund. The Pagaya Opportunity Fund, the largest P2P fund in Israel, manages about NIS 4.7 billion ($1.28 billion), and says that it will instead use a mechanism to transfer funds on a quarterly basis. Read more

Goshen’s gospel: “Every company is entering the world of Generative AI.” Ori Goshen, CEO of AI21 Labs, whose models will be offered as part of Amazon’s entry into the field of artificial intelligence shares how “generative AI opens up possibilities that did not exist before.” Read more

“Even Gaza is ahead of us in renewable energy.” Dr. Lior Herman, an expert in energy and political economy, says that Gaza may already be producing 25% of its electricity using solar panels while Israel is lagging far behind at 10%. Read more

“ChatGPT isn’t even close to being intelligent.” ChatGPT’s language model opened a door to a new world of computer uses in a field that until recently seemed impenetrable. However, according to Prof. Roni Katzir, head of the Lab for Computational Linguistics at Tel Aviv University, the technology is still “far from human cognition” and although it will have useful applications, he warns of the dangers of it being used by those who want to do harm. Read more

Second wave of Meta layoffs to hit Israel next week. 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, are expected to be let go, with the total number of people being laid off estimated to be many dozens. Read more

Survey: Israeli tech executives report severe damage to investor confidence due to judicial overhaul. A survey conducted by Start-Up Nation Central revealed that almost 80% of company executives reported canceling meetings with investors and 30% reported a complete halt to meetings with investors due to the judicial overhaul. Read more

Twitter partners with Israel-founded eToro to offer stocks and crypto on the platform. It is understood that the partnership will expand Twitter’s ‘cashtags’ to cover many more asset classes and include a button that will send users directly to the eToro website. Read more

Otterize raises $11.5 million in Seed for its intent-based access control paradigm. Its open source and cloud product helps growing distributed workforces that demand more self-serve solutions and quick development without coordinating between client and server teams. Read more

Robert Shiller: “The economic success of a country depends on people’s belief in ultimate justice – not on the whims of an autocrat.” The Nobel Laureate who predicted the dot-com bubble burst and housing market crash in 2008, says that he does not foresee an imminent recession, and also says that he regrets not signing a letter criticizing Israel’s judicial overhaul. Read more

Rupert raises $8 million in Seed for its analytics distribution platform. Its platform connects analytics sources, operational applications, and communication tools to enable analytics and operations teams to offer hyper-personalized insight alerts to business stakeholders. Read more

“The AI genie is out of the bottle and I don’t really think it can be put back in.” Yanay Zaguri, an expert in learning technologies and AVP of Organizational Growth at AppsFlyer, tackles the artificial intelligence revolution: “Humanity needs to write a new code of ethics.” Read more