CTECH – Latest Israeli Innovation & Technology News Mar. 15, 2023
“Don’t ask questions. Just withdraw the money now.” In the dramatic leadup to the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, Avi Eyal, managing partner of Entrée Capital, which invests in dozens of Israeli companies, sent a WhatsApp message that prevented potentially major damage to many of his portfolio companies. Read more
Reality bites: VC flaws exposed yet again in SVB collapse. A venture capital fund is not only a financial investor, it is also supposed to accompany the entrepreneur and hold their hand, especially of the young and inexperienced among them. But every time reality reveals the fact that VC funds only like risks they are familiar with and that are backed by other people’s money. Read more
Erel Margalit: “The collapse of SVB is a warning light for Israel.” The Founder and Executive Chairman of venture capital fund JVP added: “Every venture capital fund now advises its entrepreneurs to open two accounts in different banks in the US and two accounts in two different banks in Israel.” Read more
Cybersecurity startup Mitiga adds $13 million to Series A for cloud incident response services. The company faces competition from a slew of Israeli counterparts, including Wiz, Laminar, and Sentra. Read more
Opinion | Artificial relationships: Will AI replace love in the near future? “While Generative AI models simply mimic humans and are not sentient in any way, it is becoming increasingly common for people to develop emotional connections with AI models such as ChatGPT,” writes Adir Ron, CTO at Microsoft for Startups. Read more
Mind The Tech London 2023 | “The high-tech scene in Israel is quite cohesive and has a fantastic network effect.” Professor Yaniv Erlich spoke ahead of Calcalist’s Mind The Tech London conference to discuss the main issues expected at the event. Read more
Bank tank: SVB debacle presents painful lessons for Israeli high-tech. The American bank did not have to collapse, but poor communication plus an unfortunate choice of words resulted in 40 years of high-tech activity being erased in a flash. Read more
Hello Heart CEO reveals how she saved her company with last-ditch withdrawal from SVB. Maayan Cohen said the company kept tens of millions of dollars in the bank after raising $70 million in a Series D in 2022 and taking its total funding to about $138 million. Read more
Pagaya, Similarweb and Innovid all among Israeli companies affected by SVB collapse. The magnitude of the exposure Israeli companies had to the collapsed Silicon Valley Bank is beginning to become clear. Despite this, it is estimated that most of the local companies that worked with the bank managed to withdraw a large portion of their money on Thursday. Read more
LeumiTech helped Israeli startups move $1 billion out of SVB. Bank Leumi’s high-tech subsidiary said it would increase the amount of credit available to high-tech companies that have lost access to their credit lines and are desperate for liquidity following the SVB debacle. Read more
NBA superstar Giannis and Antidote Health commit $1 million for free mental health telehealth services. The services of the “Leave No One Behind” campaign will be provided by board-certified physicians to the people of Milwaukee. Read more
Flying the coup: Following the money, employees leaving Israel too. The closing of international development centers and the brain drain are the biggest threats to the economy in the long term. Read more
AI21 Labs looking to challenge OpenAI in language model race. The Israeli startup announces Jurassic-2 language model and five new APIs for businesses. Read more
Cyren trustee seeks to sell anti-malware tech to Icelandic company. The Israeli cybersecurity company was issued a freezing order last month after accumulating debts of NIS 42 million. Cyren’s trustee has asked the district court to sell its anti-malware technology to Icelandic company OK and asked not to make the amount public. Read more
Azrieli Group investing $780 million to build new data center for TikTok. The center will be set up in Norway through Azrieli’s subsidiary Green Mountain. Read more
Israel Aerospace Industries nears $5 billion in sales in record-setting 2022. Following the war in Ukraine and the arms race around the world, the IAI saw its sales increase 11% on the previous record from 2021, with the net profit jumping by 44% to approximately $213 million. Read more
Riskified transferring $500 million out of Israel due to judicial coup. CEO Eido Gal sent an email to the employees to announce the transfer of all its cash reserves outside the country: “Our concern is that as the financial situation continues to deteriorate, and in order to maintain financial stability, the government will limit transfers and withdrawals of large amounts.” Read more
Israeli blockchain and crypto startups blossoming despite crisis. In a little over three months, five different Israeli startups in the blockchain and cryptocurrency sectors have raised significant funding. Read more
She-VC | “My most amazing experiences have always happened when I didn’t choose the most obvious path.” A firm believer in taking risks, Hamutal Meridor, Partner at Vintage Investment Partners, found herself walking away from sure things a number of times throughout her career and it was always the right choice. Read more
H2Pro to sell hydrogen to Japanese giant Sumitomo in deal estimated at $250 million. Talmon Marco’s company will build hydrogen production facilities for the Japanese corporation with a capacity of up to 500 megawatts. The value of the agreement is estimated at $250 million until the end of the decade. Marco: “It’s not a one-time deal, it’s a relationship.” Read more
Voice technology startup Kardome receives $1 million investment from Japan’s Automotive Fund. Automotive Fund’s investment in the voice technology startup is its first outside Japan. Read more
