CTECH Latest Israeli Innovation & Technology News Feb. 19, 2023
Over $1.5 billion transferred abroad from Israeli banks due to concerns of judicial coup. In the money management industry, it is estimated that private clients have transferred billions of shekels from Israel in recent weeks. Together with the companies’ transfers, the sum sits at approximately $3 billion. Read more
Game over: Playtika’s Israeli studio shuts down for good. Jelly Button was one of Playtika’s first acquisitions in the casual game genre, helping the company change direction from controversial social casino games. However, in the last round of layoffs in December, the company closed the studio permanently and fired most of its employees. Read more
“People don’t understand how traumatic it is”: Stories from laid-off techies. CTech spoke to four former techies who were impacted by the ongoing layoffs occurring in Startup Nation. Read more
Mobileye riding high after shelving fully autonomous vehicle dream. Postponing the driverless car timeline until at least 2050 removed great expectations from the shoulders of the company, which is a market leader in driver assistance systems. Since the IPO, Mobileye’s stock has more than doubled and the company has reached a value of $37 billion. Read more
Ledge raises $9 million in Seed for automated payments command center. The Israeli startup’s platform automates the entire payment lifecycle to improve visibility, lower the risk of losses, and reduce operational costs. Read more
Opinion | The times they are a-changing – if you’re a CFO. “Finance teams deserve better systems that would make their jobs easier, free up their time to do more quality work, and delight them at every step,” writes Roi Ben Daniel. Read more
Demisto founders at it again, raise $53 million in Seed for new cyber startup Descope. After selling their previous company to Palo Alto Networks for $560 million, the founders of the Israeli startup have developed a platform that enables developers to add authentication, user management, and authorization capabilities to consumer and business applications. Read more
Zscaler acquiring Israeli cybersecurity platform Canonic Security. Canonic, which has developed a platform designed to prevent organizations’ growing risks of SaaS supply chain attacks, is being purchased for several dozen million dollars after previously only raising $6 million. Read more
Oligo Security raises $20 million Series A to secure open-source libraries. The Israeli startup’s technology profiles the legitimate behavior of each library, creating a knowledge base of libraries’ profiles and alerting or blocking whenever a library activity is not as expected. Read more
Insurtech startup OpenEyes raises $18 million Series A for commercial auto insurance for fleets. The Israeli startup aims to offer commercial automotive insurance at lower rates by reducing the frequency and severity of traffic accidents. Read more
Blockchain security platform Ironblocks raises $7 million in Seed. The Israeli startup is developing a smart contract-based security solution that operates on-chain to automate threat detection and enable DeFi protocols, Web3 platforms, market makers, and cross-chain bridges to take action to stop hackers. Read more
Cybersecurity unicorn Armis reaches $100 million ARR in less than 5 years. “We are aiming to reach $200 million already within a year,” said CEO Yevgeny Dibrov. Read more
She-VC | “I once got asked who is home with my kids, it’s an offensive question a man would never be asked.” Brachie Sprung, Chief Communications Officer & Head of IR at healthtech and life sciences investment fund aMoon, has always been the underdog, but that only made her more hungry for success. Read more
Israeli regulators investigating Binance again after ordering it to shut unlicensed local activity last year. The Capital Market Authority is checking information according to which the Binance crypto exchange has returned to operating in Israel through a local website, even though it did not receive a license to do so. Read more
TransitTech unicorn Via raises $110 million at $3.5 billion valuation. The Israeli company, which maintained its valuation from its previous funding round in November 2021, ended 2022 with an annualized revenue run-rate of over $200 million. Read more
Google cutbacks reach Israel, dozens of employees to be laid off. Google’s parent Alphabet announced last month that it was cutting about 12,000 jobs globally, accounting for 6% of the workforce. Read more
Check Point registered fastest growth in seven years in 2022. The cybersecurity veteran announced that its total revenues last year reached $2.33 billion, an 8% increase year-over-year. Read more
She-VC | “Getting more female partners is easy, getting to 50% equal women partners – that’s another story.” Sarai Bronfeld, Principal at NFX, is young, bold and brave. Delivering on her advice for Israeli Chutzpah, she not only talks the talk, but also walks the walk. Read more
Intel postpones investment meeting in Jerusalem amidst heightened tensions surrounding judicial coup. Calcalist has learned from sources involved in the discussions that Intel decided to postpone the meeting due to its concern that announcing an investment at this time would be seen as political support for the government of Benjamin Netanyahu and its planned judicial coup. Read more
No Monday blues: Beating forecasts, monday.com expects 44% jump in revenue this quarter. The Israeli company concluded the last quarter of 2022 with revenues of $150 million, a jump of 57% compared to the corresponding quarter. Read more
Billionaire Teddy Sagi eyeing $1.5 billion buyout of cyber company Kape. The Israeli businessman already owns 54.8% of the company and plans to delist it from the London Stock Exchange. Read more
Are climatech startups looking to solve problems or are they looking for money? Venture capital funds have entered a climatech ‘arms race’ and are pouring billions into startups, including those that may even be harming the planet. Meanwhile, Israel is lagging behind despite declaring that it will be leading the field. Read more
High-tech companies have already withdrawn $780 million from Israel as judicial coup fears mount. An examination of dozens of public and private high-tech companies, whose aggregate value is $40 billion, also suggests that they are refraining from transferring a total amount reaching $2.2 billion into the country. Read more
Copy catcher: The Israeli startup that can spot AI-written text. As the emergence of ChatGPT raises fears of plagiarism, Israeli startup Copyleaks identifies texts created by artificial intelligence, and has already proven its capabilities to US academic institutions asking to check the originality of students’ work. Read more
Extreme Makover: “Generative AI is the most exciting step in AI.” From ChatGPT replacing human writers to Israel’s president’s AI-aided speech, Anyword CEO Yaniv Makover takes CTech on a deep dive into “a super valuable jump in technology.” Read more
Live long & prosper: Longevity is tech’s new frontier. Life expectancy is increasing, but so are risks. CTech profiles some of the leading innovative Israeli startups in LongeviTech. Read more
Michal Sela Startup Academy ends third cohort with 7 new startups battling domestic abuse. The Michal Sela Forum is working in collaboration with Google for Startups with the goal of helping 100 startups by 2030. Read more
The end of the road: Autotech company Otonomo to be acquired by Urgently after losing 95% of value. Otonomo went public via a SPAC merger at a $1.26 billion valuation in the summer of 2021, but has since laid off almost its entire workforce and dropped to a market cap of $70 million. Read more
Appointment | Kissterra appoints Udi Ziv as new CEO. Ziv previously served for six years as the CEO of fintech unicorn Earnix before leaving earlier this year. Read more
New fund to invest $125 million in Israeli deeptech and space startups. Earth & Beyond Ventures, which will focus on investments in early-stage companies, is backed by the likes of Corning, Kyocera, Samtec, and Spacecom. Read more
REE laying off 11% of team, 35 employees. The Israeli auto-tech company completed a SPAC merger in July 2021 at a value of $3.1 billion, but currently has a market cap of only about $120 million. Read more
How did an Israeli startup’s valuation plummet from $5 billion to $50 million? In June 2021, Aquarius Engines celebrated the signing of an agreement with multinational Kampac International (KIP) to sell 10% of the company’s shares at a $5 billion valuation. However, KIP never exercised the option and Aquarius is now traded on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange at a valuation of less than $50 million. Read more
Japanese investments in Israel fall by almost 50% in 2022. Investments in Israel by Japanese funds and companies totaled $1.558 billion in 2022 compared to $2.945 billion in 2021. Read more
“There is no future for high-tech in Israel the day after the judicial legislation is passed.” “This is a war for our future,” added Erez Shachar of Qumra Capital. Dozens of high-tech companies are expected to strike on Monday and hold protests during the votes in the law committee on the judicial coup. Read more
Opinion | From startup nation to watertech nation. “Israel’s leadership in water may be the most important contribution to go forth from Zion,” writes Seth M. Siegel. Read more
CTech’s Book Review: Understanding how habits can change our lives. Leor Barth, CTO at Priority Software, joined CTech to share a review of “The Power of Habit” by Charles Duhigg. Read more
