CTECH – Latest Israeli Technology and Innovation News Mar. 30, 2022
Cyera raises $56 million Series A for cloud data security platform. The Israeli startup, founded 10 months ago, has developed a cloud-native data security platform that aims to instantly and automatically discover all of a company’s data, across clouds and datastores, and then determine which of that data is sensitive and where it’s most at risk. Read more
Promoting through coding: African refugees complete Tel Aviv coding course. “Our goal is to identify existing gaps and address them by making the ‘Startup Nation’ accessible,” said PresenTense co-CEOs Khouloud Ayuti & Ariella Rosen. PresenTense aims to promote an inclusive society in which diverse communities are equally represented in Israel’s tech ecosystem. Read more
Stealth startup Kooply raises $18 million Seed round for mobile gaming development platform. While the company is not currently sharing full details of its product, the Israeli startup’s vision revolves around building a game creation platform that brings together players, creators and developers in a mobile-centric community. Read more
Pinecone announces $28 million Series A for search technology solution. The Israeli startup’s vector database product provides the search infrastructure for engineering teams to easily implement AI-powered search into their applications without the need to build their own or modify legacy infrastructure. Read more
Home365 secures $26 million Series B for real estate investing and property management platform. The company said the value of the investment assets it manages has risen to $1.5 billion, although the number of properties has remained at 7,000, the same as last June. Read more
Filling up with cash: TankU raises $8 million. The company, which was established in 2014, has developed a platform for monitoring vehicles, which enables refueling, charging, and automatically washing them. To date, the company has raised $16 million. Read more
Techstars Tel Aviv unveils first class of 2022. The local branch of the international mentorship network has announced the names of the 12 startups that will take part in its upcoming program. Read more
“Academia is helping create a gaming ecosystem.” Bezalel Academy, ironSource, Hebrew University, Ministry of Jerusalem, and the Jerusalem municipality have founded Gamehub, an incubator devoted to gaming. “Content needs to be the main focus,” says Manager Dani Bacon, who isn’t worried about startups relocating to Tel Aviv. Read more
CTech’s Book Review: Measuring and understanding the 80/20 rule. Yonatan Mandelbaum, Principal at TLV Partners, shares insights after reading “The Power Law: Venture Capital and the Making of the New Future” by Sebastian Mallaby. Read more
Boarding Pass | “The $60 billion crop protection agrochemical industry is not likely to disappear.” Projini Agchem has raised a total of $2.5 million to help develop safe ingredients for the crop protection industry. Read more
Mind the Tech London 2022 |”You need to understand the company, not just push the product.” Andy Newman, vice president at BT Security, and Gal Rimon, founder & CEO of Centrical, spoke with CTech’s James Spiro at Calcalist’s Mind the Tech conference in London about the fruitful collaboration between the two companies. Centrical has developed a platform that provides employees with customized training. Watch full video
CTalk | Finaro outlines its future plans following acquisition by US-based Shift4. At Mind the Tech London 2022, Finaro CTO Moshe Selfin shed some light on the future of the fintech company. Watch full video
CTalk | “Corporates don’t want to invest in technologies.” Andrey Yashunsky, Prytek Group Co-CEO, joined CTech to discuss its role in the investment space. Watch full video
Papaya Global acquiring cross-border payments service Azimo for $150-200 million. This is the first major acquisition made by Papaya, which saw its valuation surge to $3.7 billion last September following its $250 million Series D. Read more
Glilot Capital raises $220 million for fourth Seed fund. Since its inception in 2011, Glilot Capital has carried out 12 exits, including CyberX, LightCyber and IntSights. The fund’s portfolio comprises dozens of active companies, including At-Bay, CardinalOps, Cider Security, Cyolo, Ermetic, Lightlytics, Lightrun and Upstream. Read more
Vertex Ventures raises $400 million for two new funds. Vertex VI will serve as a $230 million early-stage fund, while Vertex Opportunity II is a $170 million fund designed to further support companies as they scale. Read more
“We’ve made a GPS-system for the brain,” says brain.space CEO. The data-neuroscience fusion startup’s unique helmet can map brain waves and will be donned by the next Israeli astronaut on his upcoming mission. “There are billions of stars in the sky and billions of neurons in our brain. We’re all connected,” CEO Yair Levy says. Read more
Melio launches mentoring program for women in high tech industry. The MentorMe program for female developers brings together women for a series of group and personal meetings, discussions, and networking. Read more
Sport-tech startup Movez shutting down due to Roman Abramovich sanctions. One of the Israeli company’s main backers was Chelsea Football Club, owned by Abramovich, who has been sanctioned by the British government due to his ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Read more
Olio’s reducing wasting by promoting sharing. “Anything you have that you aren’t going to eat has so much environmental and nutritional goodness in it that you should give it to another human and that is why Olio exists,” explained Saasha Celestial-One, Co-Founder and COO at Olio. Read more
“There are numerous examples of Israeli tech operating in the NHS and saving lives and money.” “We have an interest to increase the stickiness and improve the ties between the UK and Israel because our goal is to get companies more integrated in the UK economy and expand in the UK,” explained Idan Fisher, Director of the UK Israel Tech Hub. Read more
Kape Technologies CEO: “People are now much more aware that they need to be better protected.” In an exclusive interview, Ido Erlichman shared how his cybersecurity company has boomed over the last few years – and he believes this is just the beginning. Read more
Mind the Tech London 2022
“Diversity and inclusion are at the heart of digital innovation.” Elinor Honigstein, Head of the UK Office at UK Israel Tech Hub, is hopeful more VCs will place a focus on investing in female entrepreneurs. Watch full video
“Israel loses less than 3% of its water, it ranks fourth in the world.” Chana Herstik-Sichel, Mekorot’s Chief Legal Counsel: “Our next important challenge after managing the water economy and supplying it to all residents of the country is investing in the various digital fields – from cyber companies that will identify and prevent attacks on Israel’s water infrastructure to using artificial intelligence to manage data.” Watch full video
“We are never going back to working 5 days out of the office,” says HiBob CEO. “In the future, work schedules will include only two to three days in the office and the rest will be WFH,” said Ronni Zehavi founder and CEO of HiBob. Watch full video
How can retail innovation become radically sustainable? The panel was moderated by Elinor Honigstein, Head of UK Office at UK Israel Tech Hub and included panelists: Claire Dorrian, Head of Sustainable Finance, Capital Markets at LSEG; Saasha Celestial-One, Co-Founder & COO at Olio; Jenya Beilin, COO at Trigo; and Stewart McGuire, Head of Strategy and Corporate Development at Ocado. Watch full video
“We aren’t the most prestigious or rich airline, but we have integrated over 20 local innovative technologies.” Despite experiencing trials and tribulations during the Covid-19 pandemic, El Al CIO and CDO Ido Biger believes the airline can draw many benefits from the crisis. Watch full video
Teddy Talks: Israeli entrepreneurs pitch their startups to billionaire Teddy Sagi. In a once in a lifetime opportunity ahead of Calcalist’s Mind the Tech conference in London, a select list of startups, including Pick a Pier and Jama, got to sit down with one of Israel’s leading investors and businessman. Watch full video
“We have an ‘unfair’ advantage being a VC fund in a university.” Nimrod Cohen, Managing Partner of TAU Ventures, explained that being part of Tel Aviv University allows the firm to help entrepreneurs with connections, knowledge and workforce. Watch full video
PlanetWatchers analyzes crop damage through satellite technology. The space tech startup aims to look at the bigger picture, and is sending its data to insurer companies, ensuring that farmers get proper payout for crop damage. Read more
Bank Leumi to enable trading in cryptocurrencies through Pepper app. Pepper has reached an agreement with Paxos that will enable the buying, holding and selling of cryptocurrencies. Read more
Qumra launches second cohort of mentorship program to aid growth phase entrepreneurs. Tomer Weingarten (SentinelOne), Shlomi Ben Haim (JFrog), Micha Kaufman (Fiverr), Udi Mokady (CyberArk) , and Eido Gal (Riskified) are among the experienced entrepreneurs who will mentor CEOs of promising Israeli startups. Read more
Opinion | How can distributed technology protect our most fundamental rights and values? “Being a technology enthusiast, I always say that technology is not the goal, it’s just a way to get better, move forward, and sometimes even survive,” writes Keren Chavkin, co-CEO of PAI Tech. Read more
Mind the Tech London 2022
“Unequal access to investors is still a difficult obstacle for female entrepreneurs.” “We did not go to the same schools or work in the same well-known investment banks and we did not just “roll” into senior positions in financial organizations like the men – therefore we have less access,” explained Ella Goldner, co-founder and General Manager of Zinc VC. Read more
“The Metaverse is one of the biggest challenges facing the tech world.” Serge Lemonde, Director of Global Startup Program at Nvidia was speaking on a panel hosted by Eze Vidra, Founder at Remagine Ventures, with panelists Jay Jubas, Senior Partner at McKinsey, and Shelly Hod Moyal, Founding Partner and Co-CEO at iAngels. Watch full video
“We are building a payment platform fit for the post-pandemic world.” “We took a very complex industry with regulation and different jurisdictions and are trying to take the heavy lifting from the merchant and to automate every piece of the process,” noted Pay.com Co-CEO Tom Vaknin. Watch full video
Eze Vidra: “The Metaverse world attracts billions of dollars in investments.” Vidra, co-founder and managing partner at Remagine Ventures, made the remarks at a roundtable event at the Mind The Tech
London conference. According to him, the metaverse is a combination of the new worlds of virtual reality, Web3, and blockchain: “Gaming is a huge opportunity for entrepreneurs and startups.” Watch full video
“We’ll create electric batteries that can travel longer distances,” says Addionics CEO. “There’s fierce competition over developing next-generation batteries. We plan on increasing the distance cars can travel, while reducing their charging time,” explained Dr. Moshiel Biton. Watch full video
Snyk founder: “Investors told me that it is impossible to set up a cyber company without a branch in Israel.” Referring to the meteoric success of his cyber company that reached an $8.5 billion valuation last year, Guy Podjarny said: “The fundraising and acquisitions are just points in time. Our plan is to build a company that will be here for generations to come.” Watch full video
How TripActions went from zero revenue to a $7.5 billion valuation. The company focused on managing business trips pre-pandemic and CEO Ariel Cohen explained how he reinvented the company by launching new products and trying to attract new customers. Watch full video
“A year ago I didn’t know what an NFT was, now we sell them on all our platforms.” Isabelle Paagman, Senior Director, European Head of Private Sales at Sotheby’s, discussed how NFTs are becoming one of the company’s hottest sales. Watch full video
Outgoing 8200 commander: “Organizations don’t know where their information is.” Assaf Kochan, the outgoing commander of the IDF’s 8200 unit, now co-founder of a yet to be revealed stealth startup, stressed the importance of preserving and protecting information in the age of the cloud: “Every company needs to understand that it will be hacked.” Watch full video
“Our system knows how to turn available data into a tradable product,” says Bright Data CEO. “Now, even small farmers can gain insight from our actionable data, not only large companies,” added Or Lenchner. Watch full video
“Companies that are young and not mature enough are going public.” Ben Langworthy, Senior Managing Director at Centerbridge, made the remarks at a panel that dealt with investors’ perspectives on the Israeli and UK ecosystem. Watch full video
PayPal Ventures invests in commerce automation platform Cymbio. The Israeli startup offers a centralized platform enabling seamless and scalable retail connections to over 800 marketplaces, retailers, and widely used ecommerce solutions worldwide. Read more
REACH raises $7 million Series A for virtual workplace platform. The Israeli startup’s cloud platform provides businesses with such tools as document collaboration, e-signature, video conferencing, ID verification and payments. Read more
Lightricks acquires Popular Pays in deal valued at tens of millions of dollars. The Israeli unicorn believes that the combination of its creator suite and Popular Pays’ tools for connecting, collaborating, and tracking partnerships between brands and creators will set the standard for the next generation of the creator economy. Read more
