CTECH: Latest Israeli technology and Innovation News Mar. 24, 2022
Mind the Tech London 2022
Shlomo Kramer: “Governments will need to increase their cybersecurity budgets.” The Cato Networks CEO and former co-founder of Check Point was speaking at Calcalist’s Mind the Tech London 2022 conference. Read more
Guy Caspi: “The solution to cyber attacks is AI.” The founder and CEO of Deep Instinct described the Wipers at Calcalist’s Mind the Tech London conference as ballistic cyber missiles, stressing the need for new defense technologies: “Human ability to respond today is limited.” Read more
“Convenience is the most important thing to banking customers,” says Bank Leumi Deputy CEO. “More than 50% of our customers prefer to conduct their banking in the most convenient way possible,” says Bank Leumi Deputy CEO, Head of Retail Division, Shmulik Arbel, who also heads the Pepper app. Read more
“We don’t think of fintech as competition, we want to work together,” says Bank Leumi CEO. Hanan Friedman also told Calcalist’s Sophie Shulman: “Recently, we established a new tech venture – “The Garage” – with military tech experts, and it’s going to change the market. It’s a combination of local entrepreneurial ability and Leumi’s power and capabilities.” Read more
Teddy Sagi: “This conference leverages relations between Israel and the UK. There is no substitute for human interaction.” Sagi made the remarks at the festive opening event of Calcalist’s Mind the Tech conference, which returns to London for the first time in three years. The event was attended by 500 British and Israeli entrepreneurs, investors and senior executives. Read more
Tech community needs to help Ukraine in fight against Russia, says Calcalist Publisher. “The tech community in the West can and should act. Tech leaders don’t have fighter jets or artillery, but we have technology that may help Ukraine fight against the aggressors,” said Yoel Esteron in his opening remarks at Calcalist’s Mind the Tech London Conference on Wednesday. Read more
“I didn’t succeed because I’m especially smart or privileged,” says Emma Sinclair, CEO of EnterpriseAlumni. “At age 4 I played ‘guess the price of that stock’ with my dad,” added Sinclair, speaking at Calcalist’s Mind the Tech London conference. Read more
“Camden Market is at 84% from its pre-pandemic peak,” says LabTech CEO. “We’re breathing life into the ecosystem,” said Eylon Garfunkel, CEO of real estate group LabTech, which is one of Israeli entrepreneur Teddy Sagi’s portfolio companies. Read more
Asher Bennett, founder of Tevva Electric Trucks: “It’s very cool that you can work on big toys.” Bennett’s startup currently operates 100 delivery trucks in and around London. “We have a young workforce who love our mission and that we’re trying to do something good for the world,” he told Calcalist’s Mind The Tech London conference. Read more
Pay.com co-CEO: “We will allow merchants to receive payment in crypto too.” Assaf Cohen, co-CEO of Pay.com, which allows merchants to get paid quickly, made the remarks at the Mind the Tech London 2022 conference. Read more
Energean CEO: “We must reduce the dependence on Russian energy.” According to Mathios Rigas, another and no less important challenge is to “reduce the costs of energy as a result of inflationary pressures.” Rigas called on companies and entrepreneurs to propose technologies to prevent accidents in the gas drilling industry and reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Read more
Celsius co-founder: “Crypto is the main weapon in the war in Ukraine.” Daniel Leon made the remarks at Calcalist’s Mind the Tech London 2022 conference. Leon: “A minister in the Ukrainian government published the address of the government’s wallet on the web and the result was donations of $100 million. Read more
Island raises $115 million Series B at $1.3 billion valuation. The Island Enterprise browser was brought to market earlier this year following an 18-month stint in stealth. Read more
RapidAPI raises $150 million Series D to reach unicorn status. The company’s API Hub is used by millions of developers to discover and connect to APIs, and by companies finding, managing and collaborating on their internal and external APIs. Read more
Israeli cybersecurity startup HUB Security merging with SPAC at $1.28 billion valuation. HUB provides advanced encrypted computing solutions for companies and organizations aiming to prevent hostile intrusion and exposure of sensitive data. Read more
Elon Musk’s crusade against LiDAR and radar is taking its toll on Israel’s Arbe and Innoviz. Tesla has stopped selling vehicles with electronic radar in the US, and Musk has been refusing to use laser radar for years. Musk’s vision undermines the existence of two competing Israeli laser radar suppliers, which merged last year with American SPACs, and have since seen their value plummet. Read more
Datagen raises $50 million for artificial intelligence data simulator. The value of the Israeli company has leapfrogged five-fold since the last funding round a year ago. “We completed the fundraising in three weeks and there are a lot of companies that regret not rushing to raise capital as the market is changing,” Datagen Co-founder and CEO Ofir Zuk told Calclaist. Read more
Reigo raises $13 million Series A for residential real estate debt platform. The Israeli fintech company also announced that it has closed $100 million securitization of residential bridge loans led by Cantor Fitzgerald. Read more
Capitolis becomes Israel’s latest fintech unicorn with $110 million Series D at $1.6 billion valuation. The Israeli startup has optimized over $13 trillion in trades through its compression and novation engine, serving over 100 financial institutions. Read more
Fintech startup ChargeAfter raises $44 million for Buy Now Pay Later financing platform. The Israeli startup has developed a BNPL consumer financing network that provides shoppers with approved financing offers from multiple lenders and also provides a bespoke white-labeled BNPL platform for global banks and financial institutions. Read more
Creative media startup D-ID secures $25 million Series B. The Israeli startup uses AI and deep learning to develop reenactment-based products ranging from animating still photos to developing high-quality digital avatars. Read more
Strategic marketing platform Brew raises $12 million in Seed funding. The Israeli startup’s platform measures the impact of all of a company’s marketing activities and provides insights to drive commercial success. Read more
Lightlytics secures $26 million Series A to help DevOps teams operate cloud infrastructure. The Israeli startup’s platform creates a real-time simulated model of the production environments across the entire cloud-native stack that simulates all configuration changes. Read more
Nucleai raises $33 million for spatial biology drug development platform. The technology developed at the Israeli startup allows better prediction of the patient’s response to specific oncological treatment, saves on the ongoing process of testing different drugs and improves the chances of the development of new cancer drugs. Read more
Apono raises $5 million Seed round for permissions management platform. The Israeli startup’s cloud-native access governance solution allows organizations to securely manage permissions and adhere to compliance and customer information security requirements. Read more
Antidote raises $22 million Series A for telehealth platform. The Israeli startup aims to provide tens of millions of uninsured and underinsured Americans with a virtual HMO via Artificial Intelligence that connects users to doctors with a smart chatbot and through video calls. Read more
Revolutionizing operating rooms with robots. Robotics will not replace the human surgeon, but will make them better than ever, explains Gary Guthart, CEO of healthtech giant Intuitive Surgical, developer of the da Vinci surgical system. In a special interview, he reveals how doctors can be persuaded to trust robots, and how Covid-19 accelerated their integration into operating rooms. Read more
Opinion | Fashion Week: Let’s get digital. An inherently wasteful business, the clothing industry has a sustainability problem, but Digital Fashion can help significantly reduce its climate impact. Read more
Russak-Aminoach embracing hi-tech life with fintech-on-steroidsincubator. The former CEO of Bank Leumi discusses the 2014 cyber attack, the missed opportunity with Pepper, and the fintech projects she is leading in her new role at Team8. Read more
High-tech continues to blossom, but the rest of Israel’s economy can’t keep up. While the high-tech sector is skyrocketing, national welfare expenses in Israel have declined compared to other OECD countries, expanding the already wide gaps between tech employees and the rest.
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Israel’s space tourist being sued for hundreds of millions by the Minesweeper. Avi Buzaglo-Yoresh, who developed a technology that can
detect minefields through aerial images and was Eytan Stibbe’s partner, is suing the next astronaut, claiming he is owed funds from defense exports and projects in Africa. Stibbe: My connection to this activity and lawsuit is zero. Read more
Opinion | From childhood to adulthood: Two pieces of advice for women looking for a career in tech. “If you want to succeed and see younger generations succeeding as well, you must be there for other women, for other girls. You must inspire them, mentor them, and lead the way for change,” writes Sharon Uda, VP R&D at CHEQ. Read more
Appointments | VC Square Peg appoints Yonatan Sela as Partner as it expands its activity in Israel. The VC fund, which manages $1.2 billion across several different funds, invests primarily in Australia, Southeast Asia, and Israel. Read more
“Women in venture capital is still a big deal.” Four female representatives of the next generation of executives in venture capital funds met for an open discussion on entrepreneurship, risks, technological trends and the bugs in Israeli high-tech. Read more
Bionic raises $65 million for application intelligence platform. The Israeli startup’s platform automatically reverse engineers applications, delivering a comprehensive inventory with architecture and dataflows, monitoring critical changes in production, and enabling developer guardrails to enforce architecture. Read more
Jared Kushner coming to Israel in search of tech investments. Kushner and the three other executives of the Affinity Partners fund, which has already secured $3 billion in funding, plan to meet with Israeli companies worth between $300 million and more than $1 billion. Read more
“DevOps is a culture, it’s not a job description.” Aviran Mordo, Wix’s VP of Engineering, talks about the dev-centric culture it fosters for its 1,200 engineers. Read more
Israeli investor Erel Margalit visits Bahrain to promote innovation and tech entrepreneurship between both countries. A meeting between Margalit and H.E. Shaikh Salman bin Khalifa Al Khalifa explored Israeli and Bahrain tech communities. Read more
Women in Gaming | Derogatory treatment could deter female gamers from becoming game designers. Female gamers receive unequal treatment, and this could later deter them from becoming game designers, programmers, and developers says Miri Nudelman, a data engineer at Playtika. Read more
Opinion | Israel’s tech ecosystem needs to address the start-up “Valley of Death.” “The Israeli tech ecosystem may be in the spotlight with dozens of new unicorns in just a few years, combined with a flurry of SPACs, yet the uncomfortable fact is that 2021 yielded a record low number of new startups,” writes Itzik Goldwaser, CEO of Yissum. Read more
Opinion | Privacy-first blockchain: A tool for safety amid geopolitical strife. “As uncertainty looms for Ukraine, Russia, and the rest of the world, one thing is clear – people don’t deserve to lose everything because of their circumstances,” writes SCRT Labs CEO Guy Zyskind. Read more
Taking stock of Israel’s blockchain and crypto landscape in 2022. Despite some notable success stories, Israel’s tech sector has been slow in embracing the Web3 movement. But is it too late for blockchain and crypto to follow in the footsteps of cybersecurity to become a lucrative source of export and pride for the country? Read more
Canopy raises $13 million to improve oncology practices. The startup’s platform includes a full suite of intelligent, electronic health-record integrated tools to help cancer centers continuously engage with their patients, streamline clinical workflows, and capture new reimbursement streams for their meaningful work. Read more
Women in Gaming | “In gaming, the gender pay gap is still a thing.” Despite the progression of the industry, women still earn less on average than their male counterparts, and must “have that uncomfortable discussion over raises,” says Shira Korach, a 2D Designer at Matific. Read more
CTech’s Book Review: Maintaining a sense of innovation and creativity over time. Aran Erel, Country Manager for Israel, Greece and Cyprus at F5, shares insights after reading “Einstein: His Life and Universe” by
Walter Isaacson. Read more
Appointments | SafeBreach appoints Yossi Attas as director of Israeli R&D center. The cyber company recently completed a $53.5 million Series D round, and expects to double its number of employees over the next year. Read more
Mind the Tech London 2022 | Israel’s high-tech scene is coming to London. Focusing on innovation and tech as well as business ties, the 2022 Mind the Tech conference will bring together leading entrepreneurs, investors and business-people from Israel and the UK. Read more
Opinion | Latin America is primed for Israeli innovation. 663 million people, representing 8.4% of the world’s population, are rapidly emerging from the Covid-19 crisis in South America and provide a huge target audience for technological products and services. Read more
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