CTECH – Latest Israeli Technology and Innovation News June 27, 2022
Jefferies opening office in Israel, President declares, “This is just the beginning.” Brian Friedman, President of the prestigious American investment bank Jefferies, is setting up the local branch in a time of crisis, because “the pricing of Israeli companies is more attractive than ever.” He expects the arrival of 20 private funds by September, and believes the worst of the crisis is behind us. Read more
StreamElements to lay off 20% of employees less than a year afterraising $100 million led by SoftBank. The company, which provides engagement and monetization tools for live and VOD content creators, joins Cybereason and Trax on the list of Israeli SoftBank-backed startups making cuts. Read more
Google to ‘push back’ on law enforcement requests for abortion info, says Chief Privacy Officer. “We will be looking at the way our services operate to ensure we are protecting our users maximally and we will continue engaging both with law enforcement and with policy makers to ensure that legal demands for information are not abused,” Google’s Keith Enright said on Sunday during a visit to Israel. Read more
Bus to the Future: Yozmot Atid’s support tour shines spotlight on periphery’s female entrepreneurs. Led by Israel’s leading senior business executives, the group visited young female entrepreneurs in what was hailed as a “significant step in the effort to reduce the deepening gaps in Israeli society.” Read more
CTech’s Book Review: How to live in a world of randomness. Judah Taub, Managing Partner at Hetz Ventures, shares insights after reading “The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable” by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Read more
CTalk | “Customer know-how and how they used to spend is evolving all the time.” Nir Kalfon, Founder and COO at Lazzy, spoke to CTech about how online customers have changed over the years. Watch full video
“Physical stores are not going away… but the way we shop has to change.” Raz Golan, CEO of Shopic, joined CTech to discuss how its technology is revolutionizing grocery stores. Watch full video
Can Tax Tech make complex bureaucracy user-friendly for individuals and authorities alike? “The significant increase in e-commerce, the developing crypto sector, new developing economies such as the gig economy and the creator economy, all of these create complex tax issues for individuals and small businesses,” noted Noga Lakritz, Director of Business Research at Team8. Read more
“Our vision is to create the first map product to access the world below us.” Startup 4M Analytics is using a combination of satellite and other data to map underground infrastructure to assist linear construction companies. Read more
Israeli contech company INTSITE is bringing a data-driven approach to construction. The company has recently announced a partnership with Japan-based Komatsu and MachineMax, a Shell company based in the UK.
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Opinion | Rethinking organizational cybersecurity strategy for corporations. “The fact that commercial companies have experienced such attacks casts doubt on the assumption that they don’t need to include nation state level attacks as one of the threats to be addressed,” writes Dr. Yaniv Harel, CSO at the Blavantnik Interdisciplinary Cyber Research Center. Read more
Pagaya focused on long-term goals despite dejecting opening day on Nasdaq. The Israeli fintech company saw its shares plummet on its first day on Wall Street after completing its SPAC merger at an $8.5 billion valuation. Read more
Starburst acquiring Israeli startup Varada for approximately $60 million. Varada’s technology enables data practitioners to go beyond the traditional limitations imposed by data infrastructure and instead zero in on the data and answers they need. Read more
Evinced raises $38 million Series B for accessible web and mobile development. At least 2.2 billion people depend on assistive technology in order to effectively interact with websites and mobile applications. Read more
SpotitEarly raises $6.2 million for early detection of cancers based on olfactory abilities of dogs. Each type of cancer has a unique odor, and most also have a common denominator. Dogs can detect these odors in a fraction of a second. Read more
ZIM invests in AI startup Data Science Consulting Group’s $6 million Series A. This investment was made following a successful commercial collaboration between ZIM and DSG in the creation of a center of excellence for the development of AI tools for the maritime shipping industry. Read more
CTalk | Azrieli.com: “Malls are not dead and will not be dead soon.” Daniel Korn, CEO of Azrieli.com, spoke to CTech about e-commerce and what the future of shopping looks like. Read more
Covid-19 saw a 60% increase in demand for local brands, says Google Israel. The pandemic changed the Israeli perception of local brands versus global companies during their online shopping experience, shares Ziv Avraham, Google Israel’s Industry Manager, Retail and E-commerce. Read more
“Marketplaces today amount to a bigger chunk of business than separate e-commerce.” Michael Mitrani, VP e-Commerce & Marketing at Super-Pharm Online, spoke to CTech about its online Marketplace. Read more
Inside MISTRIX’s mission to offer personalized makeup campaigns. Shir Coffman, CEO of MISTRIX, spoke to CTech about the future of online shopping for makeup and cosmetics. Read more
E-Commerce Conference | “The next thing in e-commerce is creating content using artificial intelligence.” This is according to Liat Zakay, Director of Strategic Growth EMEA at Shopify, who was speaking at the Google and Calcalist E-commerce Conference. “This means that in the e-commerce world it will be possible to automatically produce an advertisement that will be personally targeted to the customer.” Read more
The future of e-commerce: Marketplaces take over the world. “Marketplaces are like a mall that has management, businesses and customers. The platform brings customers who prefer a large variety of products, to return to a site that recognizes and knows their details and is updated with their means of payment,” said Michael Mitrani, VP of E-commerce and Marketing of Super-Pharm Online. Read more
Opinion | How banks, regulation, and the business world are addressing the current crypto crisis. “The crisis is an opportunity to examine fundamental issues in the market, resolve regulatory issues and instill confidence among all stakeholders,” writes Tal Weiser, Managing Director Sales, Global Services International Payments at Finastra. Read more
Opinion | The high-tech industry is getting a reality check – which is a good thing. Forget about Teslas in the parking lot, fancy parties and inflated valuations. Reality is forcing the high-tech industry to shift its focus from growth to profitability, giving rise to a stronger sector across the board. Read more
“Game over” or “Play on”? What does the future hold for Israeli game makers. The value of the global mobile games market is weakening for the first time and the Israeli high-tech bubble has burst, so should game makers in Israel be apprehensive? Read more
Airspan laying off 35 employees in Israel. The U.S. company announced just four months ago that it plans on recruiting dozens of additional employees in the country. Read more
Vine Ventures closes $140 million Fund II, half to be allocated to Israeli startups. The fund will focus on investments in B2B companies in the cloud, cybersecurity, AI, data, and fintech sectors, investing $1 million to $10 million as a first check. Read more
Sarona Ventures launches new $20 million fund with investments from private investors and wealthy families. The fund’s focus is on early-stage investments in Israeli entrepreneurs and startups in the Seed and Series A stages. Read more
Game on: How Turkey has become a mobile gaming powerhouse. In the shadow of a shattered economy, Turkey has become a hyper-casual gaming incubator, attracting international venture capital funds and exporting gaming companies that are sold at lofty valuations. Read more
The cyber arena is “more significant than ever,” says Team8. The summit will be attended by more than 100 CISOs from leading companies like Intuit, MasterCard, and Walmart and coincide with the start of Tel Aviv University’s Cyber Week. Read more
“Online sales in the Israeli market grew by 85% during the pandemic.” Einat Nemesh, Director at Google Israel, was speaking at the opening of the Google and Calcalist E-commerce Conference, adding that: “The next step is to move from a textual to a visual search. That is, to photograph a shoe and find where to buy it.” Read more
Opinion | The representation of females in Disney+ avatars is fundamentally flawed – which is very unsurprising. As part of its conservative and archaic approach to designing female characters in movies and TV shows, the media giant is also depriving its new Israeli users of female avatars. 11 of the 15 avatars are men or boys, with the 4 female representations including 3 princesses and Minnie Mouse. Read more
Uni-cuts: Why even unicorns with plenty of cash are making significant cuts. Unicorns like Trax, Cybereason and OpenWeb, which raised hundreds of millions of dollars last year, have announced the layoff of dozens of workers in recent days. The reasons: maintaining the cash in their coffers, keeping the company’s investors calm and retaining talents. Read more
Global-e to acquire Borderfree from Pitney Bowes for $100 million. Borderfree helps retailers enter new global markets by localizing their domestic website in over 200 countries and territories. Read more
RevealSecurity raises $16 million Series A to detect malicious activities in enterprise applications. The Israeli startup’s detection solution is application agnostic, analyzing user journeys in and between different applications – SaaS, cloud and custom-built applications. Read more
Cyberint raises $28 million to help organizations gain visibility into external risk exposure. The Israeli startup combines dark web data harvesting with autonomous analysis of the organization’s attack surface. Read more
Tnuva expanding its activities in the alternative meat and fish sectors. Following its success with alternative milk products, the company has launched an R&D center for alternative protein products. Read more
The FemTech revolution: 7 Israeli companies making headlines in women’s health. From smart contraceptives to AI powered diagnosis, the global FemTech market size is expected to grow from $28B in 2021 to $33B in 2022 according to The Business Research Company. Read more
Israeli radar maker RADA to be acquired by Leonardo in $670 million deal. RADA engineers mini-tactical radars for active military protection, counter-drone applications, critical infrastructure protection, and border surveillance. Read more
Long Exposure | “Immigrants gamble their entire lives. There is no Plan B.” Oren Kaniel and his wife Lisa Zaythik started separately, from low life points, and climbed together to run unicorn AppsFlyer. Read more
Opinion | Why do they keep investing? Among the leading VCs, it was often two or even one investment that generated the vast majority of returns in one fund and cemented their reputation, writes Meir Valman. Read more
Appointment | Intuit appoints Moti Eliav as its new Israel Site Leader. Eliav holds more than 30 years of experience and joined Intuit in 2020 as Head of IDX (Intuit Data Exchange) Israel. Read more
Retail analytics unicorn Trax to lay off over 100 employees. “We still have a lot of money in our account from last year’s funding round, but we are required to reach profitability faster than we had planned,” said Trax co-founder and Executive Chairman Joel Bar-El. Read more
Comcast to acquire startup Levl for an estimated $50 million. The American-Israeli startup develops technology that authenticates wireless devices and can help prevent hacking, manipulation, and deception. Read more
AI sales solution Amy raises $6 million in Seed to automate pre-meeting research. The company will use the funds to enhance its AI, NLP, and machine learning capabilities and launch its B2P solution to the market. Read more
Wilco raises $7 million Seed for upskilling platform for software developers. The game-like platform helps software engineers accelerate their professional growth and develop expert intuition through real-world engineering challenges in a “fantasy” startup. Read more
Five detained in $35 million international fraud case. Police arrested 5 people suspected of stinging prominent figures in the high-tech and venture capital industries and former military officers. Among the detainees is the son of a former IDF Chief of Staff. Read more
“R&D centers do not produce much for the state of Israel.” Former chairman of the National Economic Council, Prof. Eugene Kandel, has surprisingly harsh criticism of the high number of high-tech R&D centers in Israel. He states that this is one of the causes of the high-tech manpower crisis. “It was important that Google & Microsoft come here, however, today there are over 400 companies and we are already on the map.” Read more
Boarding Pass | Fairgen: Tackling the algorithmic bias of AI. The company has raised $2.5 million to challenge historical data still used by organizations. Read more
Long Exposure | “When you’re in love with someone who has left, you can not bear to see her in the arms of another.” Serial Israeli entrepreneur Benny Landa misses Indigo and his father, and hopes he’ll get to die at work. Read more
