CTECH: Latest Israeli Innovation & Technology News Aug. 1, 2024
Intel to layoff thousands of employees in latest round of cutbacks. According to a Bloomberg report, the chip company could present the plan as early as this week. Read more
Fiverr publishes positive earnings and announces acquisition of Israeli dropshipping startup. AutoDS’s platform automates the dropshipping process to help source products from major channels like Amazon and eBay and to help businesses scale easily. Read more
Holisto raises $10 million from travel giant Trivago. The Israeli company, which specializes in price aggregation technology, has now raised over $20 million and will continue to operate independently with a team of about 250 employees in Israel and abroad. Read more
Teva posts impressive Q2 results, ups 2024 revenue forecast. Strong sales of Austedo and Ajovy lead to double-digit growth for the Israeli pharma company. Read more
Israel’s $155M fund to support 18 institutions in VC investments. The program, Yozma 2.0, aims to close the gap in investments in Israeli startups, especially early-stage ones, which was created following the global slowdown and due to Israel’s complex geopolitical situation. Read more
Faye raises $31 million Series B for fintech platform for travelers. Since launching its app to American travelers in 2022, Faye has continued to expand its offering, which currently includes travel insurance, 24/7 assistance, real-time trip monitoring and alerts, and more. Read more
Clutch Security raises $8.5M in Seed funding to secure and manage Non-Human Identities. The Israeli startup aims to deliver end-to-end NHI security and proactively bridge NHI security gaps across the entire organizational landscape, without affecting business velocity. Read more
Monto nets $9 million in Seed funding with promise to curb B2B payment “chaos”. The company helps B2B finance teams get paid from any AP portal used by their enterprise customers by creating smart connections between financial systems such as ERPs and AP portals. Read more
Nvidia VP Automotive: “At some point we’ll realize that autonomous vehicles are vastly better than human driving.” Chip industry titan Nvidia emerged victorious at the prestigious CVPR competition. Danny Shapiro, vice president at Nvidia’s automotive division, says their AI-driven end-to-end model aims to revolutionize autonomous vehicle technology. Read more
SeedIL raises $18 million for new early-stage fund. Founded by entrepreneurs Cynthia Phitoussi and Audrey Chocron, SeedIL has achieved four exits to date from its first fund, including BreezoMeter, which was acquired by Google for over $200 million. Read more
Cato Networks surpasses $200 million in ARR, doubling revenue in under two years. Earlier this year it was reported that the Israeli cybersecurity firm, which was valued at more than $3 billion in a private funding round last year, had hired underwriters for an initial public offering in New York. Read more
Man vs. Machine: The world’s first attempt to regulate AI is underway. Everything you need to know about the EU’s new and ambitious AI Act to regulate artificial intelligence, which will come into effect this week. Read more
Israel to collect a minimum tax rate of 15% from multinational companies. The Ministry of Finance announced that Israel would join the OECD’s taxation plan on multinational companies with the policy expected to enter into force in 2026. Amid concerns that raising taxes may reduce Israel’s attractiveness for companies, the ministry says that they can still receive special grants. Read more
BIRD Foundation approves $6.55 million for six new projects. The projects relate to innovations in Environment, Electro-optics, Healthcare IT, and Quantum Computing. Read more
Opinion | Beyond cybersecurity: Securing Israel’s future as the Startup Nation. “By embracing diversity in our innovation economy, we can secure our position as a global leader in technology and entrepreneurship for generations to come,” writes 8200 Alumni Association CEO Chen Shmilo. Read more
Of mice & women: Meet the doctor trailblazing towards a cure for aging. Dr. Linda Rubinstein’s journey began by escaping from communist Prague, continued in the innovative laboratories of NASA, and now she is back, diving into the depths of the mitochondria of mice and humans. If her plan to play with cells is successful, the unusual route will lead to an understanding how to avoid dementia and towards treatments that are more suitable for women. Read more
Why is Palo Alto’s founder launching a low cost airline? Low-cost Air Haifa, in which Palo Alto Networks’ founder Nir Zuk is the sole investor, will receive its first plane at the end of the month. The airline aims to offer residents of northern Israel convenient flights to Greece and Cyprus. Read more
OrCam closing glasses department, cutting dozens of jobs in third round of layoffs this year. The Israeli startup has decided to focus on its Hear division after the technological progress in image processing by language models has made its Low Vision products largely redundant. Read more
Hezbollah’s UAV infiltrations expose IDF’s vulnerabilities. From Yemen to Lebanon, the expanding UAV threat to Israel has the IDF strengthening defenses amid escalating tensions. Read more
Opinion | Rethinking cybersecurity: Preventing the next massive IT outage. “The CrowdStrike outage highlights the risk of lack of resilience and the danger posed by over-reliance on single sources of technology and software, and it has become a blueprint for nation-state adversaries to recalibrate tactics, techniques, and procedures and cause devastating consequences,” writes Morgan Wright, Chief Security Advisor of SentinelOne. Read more
Can Check Point’s new CEO help it realize its full potential? Check Point has everything it needs to succeed and become a true cyber giant. What it lacks is exactly what incoming CEO Nadav Zafrir brings: an entrepreneurial spirit and boldness. Its success will depend, in part, on the ability of the mythical founder Gil Shwed to loosen the reins enough to change the company’s DNA. Read more
Who will fill Nadav Zafrir’s big shoes at Team8? “We built a machine that builds companies. With us, it is one partnership that manages the whole machine, and it has become bigger than all of us,” said Team8 executive chairman Yuval Shachar following Zafrir’s departure for the role of CEO at Check Point. Read more
EV battery tech startup Addionics nets $39 million Series B led by GM. The Israeli company’s low-cost drop-in solution integrates into existing production facilities, allowing battery manufacturers and automakers to increase production capacity while reducing manufacturing costs. Read more
Scopio Labs secures $42 million Series D for AI-based blood cell analysis. The Israeli startup’s platform uses computational photography to provide digital imaging of thousands of cells, giving lab practitioners a full-field view of all regions of clinical interest on the sample at the highest resolution, supplanting the need for manual microscopy. Read more
Mapping Israel’s defense tech landscape. “As the global security landscape continues to shift, Israel’s defense industry is well-positioned to address the challenges and seize the opportunities presented,” said Giora Shaked, CBO at Startup Nation Central. Read more
Nadav Zafrir to replace Gil Shwed as CEO of Check Point. Zafrir will take up his post in December 2024 and will also be added to Check Point’s board of directors. Shwed, who founded the company 30 years ago and has managed it since, will transition to the position of Executive Chairman. Read more
Dazz raises $50 million to accelerate AI-powered cloud security remediation. The company’s unified remediation platform provides visibility across all detection tools and environments, including code, clouds, applications, and infrastructure. Read more
Wiz-Google deal collapse will only benefit Israel’s cyber industry. By canceling the deal, Wiz’s founders have paved the way for other Israeli entrepreneurs to feel confident in their path. Read more
JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon makes whirlwind visit to Israel. Dimon’s visit lasted only 48 hours. During this time, he met with the bank’s clients in Israel, as well as with CEOs, senior high-tech entrepreneurs, and heads of financial institutions. Read more
Rebuilding tech in the Negev: “Working in tech offers the best chance at social mobility in Israel.” Place-IL CEO Keren Halperin-Musseri spoke to CTech about their efforts to revive the tech industry in the Western Negev through matching employees with tech companies and also through the new co-working space that they have opened in Sderot to help keep tech workers in the region. Read more
