CTECH – Latest Israeli Technology and Innovation News July 1, 2022
“Uncertainty for the public market and for investor sentiment is toxic.” Irit Kahan, Head of DTCP Israel, Growth Equity, was speaking on a panel with Yuval Cohen, Founder and Managing Partner at StageOne; Idit Muallem, Partner at Pitango Venture Capital; and Guy Navon, Ph.D., Head of Discount-Tech. Watch full video
Back to School: Serial entrepreneur Ori Allon donates NIS 2 million to TAU Innovation Center. Discussing the troubling trend of young people running to make it big in tech and giving up on academia, Allon said: “You don’t need to just pursue exits. Academic education brings you much further.” Read more
Gett founder partnering with NBA stars to take U.S. lottery tickets online. Jackpot, co-founded by Roi More, is a digital platform that facilitates the purchase of official state lottery tickets online, with its investors including James Harden, Joel Embiid, Martin Brodeur, Michael Rubin, Theo Epstein, and Jason Robins. Read more
“We are in a crisis – we should get used to saying the word.” Izhar Shay, Former Minister of Science and Technology of Israel and Chairman of the Board at Peak Ventures, talks about Israel’s future in uncertain times. Read more
The Israeli company using satellite data to monitor international conflicts. “There’s a staggering amount of data out there; if you know what to do, you can turn yourself into a miniature intelligence powerhouse,” says Managing Director of The Intel Lab Itay Bar-Lev. Read more
CTalk | “High-tech is very resilient because it has experienced similar situations in the last 25-30 years.” Gil Brandes, Head of High Tech at Naschitz Brandes Amir, spoke to CTech about the legal aspect of Startup Nation. Watch full video
“Banking, in general, has a crucial role in the tech industry.” Guy Navon Ph.D., Head of Discount-Tech, spoke to CTech about banking’s role in Startup Nation. Watch full video
Context is King for ActiveFence when fighting bad content online. Noam Schwartz, Co-Founder and CEO at ActiveFence, discusses how to fight online toxicity with technology. Watch full video
“None of us predicted the crisis but we are certainly prepared for it.” Daniel Povitsky, Co-founder at Vine Ventures, and Dean Meyer, Investor and Head of Israel at the VC fund, spoke to CTech about the way the current crisis is affecting the investment world. Watch full video
“Take a deep breath, gather your investors and make sure you have enough runway.” Ran Dagan, Head of Technology Investments at Discount Capital, doesn’t think the crisis will end any time soon. Watch full video
Walmart to acquire AR optical startup Memomi. The Israeli-founded startup has developed technology to enhance virtual optical try-on experiences, helping customers virtually “try on” eyewear in real-time. Read more
Appointment | Startup Hyro announces appointment of three new VPs. Daniel Ben Tov has joined as VP of Research and Development, Paz Yanover as VP of Product Management, and Cathy Jones as VP of Sales.
Read more
Shai Banaim named General Manager of IBM in Israel. Incumbent Daniel Melka will take the role of Vice President of Technology Support Services IBM for EMEA. Read more
CTech’s Book Review: A novel lesson in management principles. Nir Feldman, Chief Engineering Officer at Skai, shares insights after reading “The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement” by Eliyahu Goldratt. Read more
Unicorns Forum
Check Point: “We have $4 billion to spend and we are looking for acquisitions.” Co-founder and CEO Gil Shwed added during the Unicorns Forum that the cybersecurity powerhouse has already reached its recruiting target for the year, adding between 500-1000 employees. Read more
Optibus CEO: “The next unicorns could be in areas such as electricity, water and urban planning.” Amos Haggiag, co-founder and CEO of unicorn Optibus, added at the Unicorns Forum sponsored by Calcalist and Discount Bank: “In 2022 public transport is still planned through the movement of blocks on boards and Excel charts. So we have developed a new algorithm that works in more than 1,000 cities.” Read more
Honey, the unicorns have shrunk. When did the worship of unicorns get replaced by sourness? Is the unbridled joy over the fall in share prices and the new wave of layoffs justified? Calcalist’s Publisher Yoel Esteron raises these hot issues and more at the Unicorns Forum. Read more
Uri Levin: “High-tech will continue to be the growth engine of the Israeli economy even in a crisis – and we will stand behind you.” The CEO of Discount Bank added at the Unicorns Forum: “The crisis is not happening just in technology but in the global economy and of course in Israel as well. We do not know what its depth and duration will be, but I estimate that there will be a slowdown and not a deep crisis but that it will take quite some time.” Read more
“Last year we could say ‘grow with all your might’, today we need to be more precise.” Tami Bronner, partner at Vertex Ventures, made the remarks during the Unicorns Forum. HiBob CEO Ronni Zehavi warned that “the third quarter will show whether to invest in growth or to lay off.” Read more
Hippo Founder: “We were worth $5-6 billion and now we are worth half a billion. I’ve had better years.” Assaf Wand was talking on a panel that discussed how the turmoil in the markets has affected financial technologies. “There is a major correction in the entire industry and it is coming to everyone.” Read more
“Early stage investments are becoming interesting once again.” Izhar Shay, chairman of Peak Ventures and the former Minister of Science and
Technology, added that “crises are the best times for entrepreneurs and investors to invest in companies.” Read more
“The fight for high-tech talent continues but wages will not continue to rise.” Noam Schwartz, co-founder and CEO of ActiveFence, was speaking at Calcalist and Discount Bank’s Unicorns Forum. Ofer Feldman, co-founder of Stampli: “The market was flooded with jobs, even if we see a reduction there is still a lot of demand for every employee.” Read more
“In the last two years people were measured by their dreams, and the size of the dream was the size of the valuation.” Sisense CEO Amir Orad was speaking at the Unicorns Forum sponsored by Calcalist and Discount Bank. He added that the biggest challenge for Israeli high-tech is the shortage of workers: “My workers in Canada are much cheaper than in Tel Aviv, so it is much easier to recruit them and that is a pity.” Read more
“Unicorns are fiction and don’t reflect the reality of any startup.” Adam Fisher, Partner at Bessemer Venture Partners, was speaking during the Unicorns Forum. “We experienced two-and-a-half years that in retrospect were a bubble.” Read more
Helios raises $5 million to increase cloud-native development velocity. The company claims to be the first developer platform built specifically for cloud-native application developments. Read more
Convicted Cineworld CEO: “We were the second largest cinema chain in the world. It all collapsed.” Mooky Greidinger was convicted as part of a plea bargain in which he admitted that a movie distribution company controlled by Cineworld violated the terms of a merger by not distributing eight films to its competitor, the Lev cinema chain. Read more
Reichman University setting up VC fund for its graduates. The university’s fund, which already has $30 million in commitments from investors, will receive exclusive access to startups founded by students. Read more
Parallel Wireless set to lay off a quarter of its employees in Israel. Around 60 of 250 employees are set to leave the American company, which was founded in 2012 and set up its R&D center in Israel six years later. Read more
Gloat raises $90 million Series D led by Al Gore’s investment firm. The Israeli startup’s platform helps businesses to develop and deploy their talent, while continuously understanding and adapting their workforce to changing needs. Read more
Apple expanding R&D hub in Palestinian Authority. Apple currently employs 60 people in the city of Rawabi after starting initially with a group of five engineers less than four years ago. Read more
Consumer intelligence startup Konnecto raises $21 million. The Israeli startup’s Path-to-Purchase Optimization Platform offers highly targeted recommendations to increase online sales. Read more
Cyolo raises $60 million Series B for zero trust network access solution. The Israeli startup helps organizations in the IT and OT spaces to enable all users, including employees, third parties, and remote and on-site workers, to seamlessly and securely connect to their working environments. Read more
Bright Machines lays off 30 employees in Israel. The American company develops software-defined autonomous manufacturing lines for industry and has an R&D and operations center in Kibbutz Yakum in Israel’s Sharon region. Read more
Land of milk & money: Tara will market Remilk’s cultured milk within a year. As part of the innovation center set up by Tara’s parent company, the Central Bottling Company, an agreement was signed according to which Remilk will produce the protein, and Tara will use it for its products. Tnuva is a major investor in Remilk. Read more
Maritime startup Captain’s Eye receives $4 million investment from SixAI. The company, founded in 2020, developed an AI-based system that detects unusual events on ships in real-time, preventing property, physical, and financial damage that might occur at sea. Read more
Playtika majority stake to be acquired at $8.5 billion company valuation. The Israeli-founded gaming giant, which will continue to be traded on Nasdaq, is changing hands once more, with private equity firm Joffre Capital to acquire a 20% controlling stake. The valuation represents nearly a 46% premium on Playtika’s share price at the end of trading on Monday. Read more
Restore Medical secures €2.5 million in EU funding for cardiac implants to treat heart failure. The Israeli company will receive an additional equity investment of €10 million from the European Innovation Council subject to a future milestone. Read more
Cordio Medical raises $18 million to leverage speech processing to monitor heart failure. The Israeli startup’s technologies are based on true speech signal processing technology, unique to each patient, augmented with machine learning capabilities. Read more
CTech’s Book Review: A closer look at disruptive innovation. Ronen Menipaz, Founder at M51 Entrepreneur Labs, Tech Investor, and Entrepreneur shares insights after reading “The Innovator’s Dilemma” by Clayton Christensen. Read more
Opinion | Stability in times of upheaval – A challenge Israel’s high-tech industry can meet. “During the period of instability Israeli entrepreneurs might tone down their desire to build a company for the longer run and “go all the way” as an independent company – and we may again see multiple smaller exits in the range of tens of millions and less in the hundreds of millions,” write Gil Brandes and Gil Somech of Naschitz Brandes Amir. Read more
Alibaba closes R&D center in Israel, lays off entire staff. Around 50 employees were notified on Sunday that they will be laid off after the Chinese e-commerce giant decided to shut down local development. Read more
Breaking the SoftBank: Who’s next on the chopping block? With the Japanese giant still reeling from the recent crisis, it’s the Israeli companies in SoftBank’s portfolio who are behind most of the recent local tech layoffs. Read more
Layoffs in tech: Israeli high-tech companies prefer to start abroad. Over recent years, many Israeli companies have chosen to develop their core locally while expanding the rest of the company abroad. As a result, while in recent weeks Israeli high-tech companies have laid off hundreds of employees, most of them have chosen to start overseas. Read more
XM Cyber acquiring Israeli startup Cyber Observer for an estimated $30 million. The Israeli company was itself acquired for $700 million by Schwarz Group last year. Read more
Incredibuild raises $35 million Series B for DevOps acceleration platform. AWS and Microsoft have both recently announced partnerships with Incredibuild to integrate its gaming stacks in order to accelerate the go-to-cloud transformation of customers and partners worldwide. Read more
“Quantum computing will revolutionize every large industry.” Nir Minerbi, Co-founder and CEO of Classiq, was speaking during an event organized by Team8 to kick off Cyber Week. Read more
Israeli government earmarks almost $900 million for climatech development. The goal of the program is to double the number of climatech start-up companies from 55 in 2021 to 110 companies by 2026, and to establish 10 Israeli venture capital funds that specialize in the field by 2026, compared to only one such fund at present. Read more
More than rocket science: Space Plasmatics aims to power green rockets in space. The space tech startup is developing electric rockets “for the tiniest spacecraft you can imagine,” says CEO. Read more
CTalk | “On a five-year view, e-commerce looks amazing.” Eytan Korn, CEO of Personalised Jewelry at Tenengroup, discusses the future of online shopping. Watch full video
“Thinking technology will solve the climate crisis is naive.” Sagi Dagan, Executive VP at the Israel Innovation Authority, was speaking at Calcalist’s Green Economy Conference. Read more
Round B | We didn’t start the fire, but: A guide to handling layoffs. With the frequent news of layoffs hitting the Israeli high-tech sector, here are some helpful tips for startup leaders who are forced to cut staff. Read more
