Apr 22, 2018

By NoCamels Team April 22, 2018 April 22, 2018 | Yuval Matalon, current CEO of eBay Israel, has announced he will retire from the e-commerce giant in the coming months after nearly 10 years heading Netanya-based Israeli development center of 330 people, a statement from eBay said. Matalon led the company to international success, which included the acquisition of Israeli startups like analytics company SalesPredict. Prior to joining eBay in 2016, Eliav served as CEO of Limlight Networks Israel, CEO of GaiaMobile US, and senior management positions at BMC Software and ServiceNow in Israel and the US. In an interview this month, Matalon told Israeli daily Globes that eBay needs “to do a better job” and assured the media publication that they will see a dramatic change in the design of eBay coming soon. “We have 150 million users, but we realized that in order to conquer the next 100 million we need to change, and once there are innovations, it will break the glass ceiling of people who today may be reluctant to buy things online,” he said. Check Out eBay Israel’s Crazy-Cool Decorated Walls! Even On eBay, Women Earn Less Than Men, Study Shows Israeli Entrepreneurs Launch First Retail Tech Hub With eBay As Key Partner April 22, 2018 Six Israeli firms including BioCatch, Aqua Security, Minerva Labs, and Cylus, among 26 global cybersecurity companies named by CB Insights as 2018’s ‘Cyber Defenders.’ April 22, 2018 | Yuval Matalon, current CEO of eBay Israel, has announced he will retire from the e-commerce giant in the coming months after nearly 10 years heading Netanya-based Israeli development center of 330 people, a statement from eBay said. Matalon led the company to international success, which included the acquisition of Israeli startups like analytics company SalesPredict. Prior to joining eBay in 2016, Eliav served as CEO of Limlight Networks Israel, CEO of GaiaMobile US, and senior management positions at BMC Software and ServiceNow in Israel and the US. In an interview this month, Matalon told Israeli daily Globes that eBay needs “to do a better job” and assured the media publication that they will see a dramatic change in the design of eBay coming soon. “We have 150 million users, but we realized that in order to conquer the next 100 million we need to change, and once there are innovations, it will break the glass ceiling of people who today may be reluctant to buy things online,” he said. April 22, 2018 | Israel’s Ministries of Agriculture and of Health are hosting the first government-backed conference on medical cannabis this week near Tel Aviv, as the Israeli cabinet is set to vote in the coming weeks on approving medical cannabis exports after months of wrangling. Dubbed “Cannaan” – a combination of cannabis and Canaan, the biblical name of the region – the four-day conference is taking place April 23-26 at Kfar Hamaccabiah in Ramat Gan, just outside Tel Aviv. The program includes speeches by Israeli Minister of Agriculture Uri Ariel, Yuval Landshaft, the Head of the Israeli Medical Cannabis Agency at the Israeli Ministry of Health, and Professor Raphael Mechoulam, the “father” of Israeli medical cannabis research. The event will also run sessions and panels on topics such as regulation, hi-tech agriculture, R&D, recent clinical studies, and the development of cannabis-based treatments and medicine. The website for the event, also called “Leading the Future,” says it is the “first international conference for medical grade cannabis.” April 19, 2018 | Israeli digital diabetes care platform GlucoMe and Norwegian electronic medical record (EMR) company DiaMan AS announced Tuesday the market launch of the GlucoMe digital diabetes care solution in Central America, according to a statement . The GlucoMe solution will first be introduced into Guatemala, Panama, and Dominican Republic and later into Costa Rica and Nicaragua followed by the rest of Central America. GlucoMe will integrate its digital diabetes solution provider with DiaMan’s diabetes-focused EMR software, under the agreement. DiaMan will lead the distribution of GlucoMe’s solution throughout Central America, including all products — wireless blood glucose monitor, mobile app, and diabetes clinic software for healthcare professionals. Working closely with hospitals and other institutions, DiaMan expects to reach up to 70,000 users in two or three years, the statements says. Founded in 2013 by Dov Moran and Yiftah Ben Aharon, GlucoMe’s digital diabetes platform consists of a smart glucose monitor, insulin pen monitor, mobile app and cloud-based digital diabetes Clinic. Currently, about 7 million people or 8 percent of the adult population of Central America have diabetes. April 18, 2018 | Israeli contract review automation startup LawGeex announced Tuesday it had closed a $12 million Series B funding round, bringing their total funding to $21.5 million, a statement said. The funding round was led by venture capital fund Aleph. Lool Ventures also participated in the round. LawGeex’s software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform uses artificial intelligence to automate, review and approve the legality of business contracts before they are signed. According to a study conducted in February in collaboration with top academics at leading universities, LawGeex’s AI platform achieved an accuracy of 94 percent in its capability of spotting risks in business contracts, while US lawyers only achieved an average of 85 percent. While it took 92 minutes for the participating lawyers to complete all five NDAs, it only took LawGeex AI 26 seconds, the study said. Founded in 2014 by CEO Adv. Noory Bechor and AI specialist Ilan Admon, the startup has offices in Tel Aviv and New York and clients that include eBay and Farmers Insurance. April 18, 2018 | Israeli medical cannabis company Together Pharma announced Tuesday that its subsidiary Globus Pharma has signed a cooperation agreement to set up greenhouses of up to 25 acres in a foreign country, according to a statement from the company. The greenhouses will be set up no later than six months after the agreement signing. The cannabis harvesting is planned for the first quarter of 2019. Together did not name the country or company with who its subsidiary signed the deal. The deal could bring in annual sales of $75 to $300 million depending on the harvest, the statement said. Globus Pharma will own 51 percent and the partner will hold 49 percent. Together also announced on Monday that its subsidiary had signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to sell medical cannabis or oil to an unnamed Canadian company with a license to grow, produce, and import medical cannabis. April 18, 2018 | US search engine giant Google will launch Google Shopping, a feature on their search results page which includes links to buy products according to search words typed by internet users, sources tell Globes . Azrieli.com and Super Pharm are said to be among the first Israeli customers to integrate the feature into their sites. Google will charge for advertising on this feature and hopes to include referrals to websites all over the world, the Israeli daily reports. The feature works when a user clicks a link to put him or her on the shopping page. The advertisement will have a picture of the product, its price, and reviews from other internet users. The service is currently in its first stages, Globes says, and advertisers will only appear to up to 2 percent of internet users. Google Shopping already operates in 37 countries. April 17, 2018 | Israeli life sciences venture capital find aMoon Partners, co-founded by Dr. Yair Schindel and Marius Nacht, also the billionaire co-founder of cybersecurity giant CheckPoint Software Technologies, announced that it raised $200 million, with a goal for a total of $500 million, to invest in mid- to late-stage companies in the health and medical technologies field. The funds were raised from private investors. “The opportunity is vast,” Schindel said, according to Bloomberg. “There are about 1,500 life-sciences startups in Israel, of all types, and about 10 percent of them are mid- to late-stage opportunities. That’s a huge pipeline that we’re following very closely.” The average investment will be between $10 million and $40 million, he said, adding that most of the investments will be in Israel with possible opportunities in the US, the UK, and Switzerland. The first aMoon health fund was set up in 2017, with Nacht putting up $200 million. The fund invested in 16 startups. April 17, 2018 | Israeli company Applitools announced that it raised $31 million in Series C funding led by OpenView, with participation from its existing investors Sierra Ventures, Magma Venture Partners, iAngels, and La Maison. Applitools platforms allow users to automate application tests that usually would be conducted manually, seeing how the app would appear on browsers, devices and more. Applitools said in a statement that it will “use the investment to fuel market expansion of its AI-powered visual testing and monitoring solution by scaling its R&D, operations, and sales.” Applitools CEO Gil Sever said, “Our mission is to help customers automate all visual aspects of application delivery, and address the growing importance of providing exceptional digital experiences across any device, browser, operating system, and language. We are excited to partner with OpenView to scale our enterprise-grade platform to support digital transformation with the velocity and quality that businesses demand.” Since it was founded in 2013 by Sever and Adam Carmi, Applitools has raised more than $46 million. Applitools sayd it developed the first and only “visual AI engine ( Applitools Eyes ) that mimics the human eye and brain in a reliable and scalable fashion.” The company says the tool has tens of thousands of users across more than 300 companies, and “recently crossed a total of 100 million visual comparisons and one billion component level validations.” Applitools is headquartered in San Mateo, California, and has an R&D center in Tel Aviv. April 17, 2018 | The Technion-Israel Institute of Technology has announced a $50 million naming gift from the Helen Diller Family Foundation to support the university’s new cutting-edge center for science and engineering. The center will be called the Helen Diller Center for Quantum Science, Matter, and Engineering, according to a statement from the university. “The gift…will strengthen the Technion’s position as a world leader in quantum science and engineering by providing the means for new faculty recruitment, establishing new infrastructure, seed funding for research and development, and educating a new generation of engineers with a master of quantum mechanics,” the university said. This is one of the largest single gifts ever to the Technion from an American donor. The Helen Diller for Quantum Science, Matter, and Engineering is also the first of its kind in Israel, hoping to advance the basic sciences while using the principles of quantum mechanics to impact various engineering fields and develop applications for a wide range of industries. The center will serve as a platform for collaboration between Technion scientists and engineers, as well as a research center for quantum computing, quantum communication, quantum computing, quantum sensing and detection, quantum materials, and quantum simulators. April 16, 2018 | Israeli-founded, Barcelona-based business travel booking and management platform TravelPerk has announced it has raised $21 million in a Series B funding round, according to the company . The round was led by Berlin-based venture capital firm Target Global and London firm Felix Capital. Spark Capital, Sunstone, and Amplo also participated in the round. This brings the company’s total money raised to $30 million. TravelPerk has been ranked the fastest-growing SaaS company in Europe and the fourth fastest-growing globally on the SaaS 1000 list , the statement says, and the company “has built the world’s largest bookable inventory” by integrating not only with hotels, airlines, rail companies, and all the major leisure travel sites. The next-generation platform, founded in 2015 by CPO Javier Suarez, and CEO Avi Meir, who completed his military service in the main technological unit of the Israeli Intelligence Corps, is a free service that also offers 24/7 customer support. April 16, 2018 | Slidely, the popular visual content creation service and cloud-based video creation service based in Tel Aviv, has announced that its online video creation maker for businesses, Promo, will be integrated with Shutterstock, the leading American stock photography, stock footage, stock music and editing tools company,  according to a statement . The new content integration adds more than nine million premium quality videos to the Promo video platform over the next few months, increasing the video library from 3.5 million to over 12.5 million. Promo, launched by Slidely in August 2016, has already attracted over 40,000 paying customers and has become one of the fastest-growing software-as-a-service video creation platforms for small-and-medium-sized businesses. April 16, 2018 | Israeli cannabis company Together Pharma has announced that its subsidiary Globus Pharma, specializing in the medical cannabis sector, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to sell medical cannabis or oil to an unnamed Canadian company with a license to grow, produce and import medical cannabis, a statement from the Israeli firm said. Under the agreement, the Canadian company will buy 50 tons of dried inflorescences (flowers) of cannabis each year or its equivalent, five tons of medical cannabis oil from Globus Pharma. The companies will also collaborate in R&D and promoting technologies in the medical cannabis sector. The companies estimate that the sales revenue of this deal will be between $3.17 and $4.7 per gram of inflorescence. Globus Pharma will provide the Canadian company with medical cannabis from farms in Israel “subject to receiving an export permit for medical cannabis” or from its farm in an overseas country, which has an export agreement with Canada. Israel is currently going through a medical cannabis export freeze ordered by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in February, which suspends reforms that would allow for the legal export of cannabis. The state and its cannabis industry stand to lose out on an opportunity to bring in $1 billion in annual revenue , but while Israeli cannabis farmers were angered by the decision, many of Israel’s leading cannabis companies and supporters remain optimistic that the ban will be lifted soon. Also, many of the Israeli companies, such as Together, are continuing to market and sell their medical cannabis products through overseas companies. The Canadian company is currently applying for a license to market and sell its own medical cannabis products in Canada and abroad. The company has told Globus that it expects to receive the license within four to five months. Globus Pharma already has a sales agreement with a German company for 25 tons a year and a sales agreement for three tons a year with another Canadian company. Together also recently reported that “it will work to establish up to 25 acres of greenhouses in a country outside of Israel in a self-financed project,” according to the press release. April 15, 2018 | Israeli startup Healthy.io announced a new partnership with the US National Kidney Foundation (NKF) and Geisinger, one of the largest health services organizations in America, for a clinical trial using a smartphone-enabled home urinalysis device for chronic kidney disease (CKD) among patients with high blood pressure. Healthy.io, according to the Tel Aviv-based company, “uses computer vision, machine learning, and user-centric design to turn the smartphone camera into a medical device.” The Israeli startup’s app will enable users to conduct a urinalysis test at home and securely share results with their clinicians to monitor the presence of albumin, which indicates kidney damage. Part of the clinical trial will be to “examine the effect of mailed, Healthy.io smartphone urinalysis kits (Dip.io test) to improve albuminuria screening compliance and detection of albuminuria.,” the companies said in a statement . Healthy.io CEO Yonatan Adiri said the company was “proud to pioneer its ‘adherence as a service’ platform with such forward-looking institutions as Geisinger and the National Kidney Foundation, adding that its “mission is to use advanced computer vision and patient-centric design to let clinicians empower their patients at scale without additional cost or effort.” He went on, “Like a Netflix for adherence we lean on the spread of digital technology and efficient logistics to offer on-demand testing delivered directly to the home. With a smartphone in your pocket, the point of care becomes wherever you are.” Alexander Chang, M.D., practicing nephrologist and assistant professor in the Kidney Health Research Institute at Geisinger, said, “Early detection of CKD is crucial so that risk factors can be aggressively managed to prevent end-stage renal disease and cardiovascular disease.” Kerry Willis, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer at NKF said the new trial “will provide important information on how to increase testing for CKD in this high-risk population.Our hope is that a home-based test makes it easier for patients at risk for CKD to comply with regular albuminuria screening and that this will lead to earlier diagnosis and treatment of CKD, reducing cardiovascular risk and preserving kidney function.” The clinical trial will get underway on April 16. April 15, 2018 | Tel Aviv University announced that it was setting up a new venture capital fund to invest in Israeli startups, the first Israeli university to make such a move. The fund, TAU Ventures, will invest in early-stage startups and will run various incubation programs in different tech fields, the university said. The first program off the ground focuses on cybersecurity and is run in partnership with Japanese multinational NEC Corporation. According to Globes , which cites sources close to the university, the fund will total some $20 million. TAU Ventures’ offices will be in Ramat Aviv and will be run by Nimrod Cohen, formerly of Plus Ventures, which led investments in a number of successful startups including YOTPO, Bringg, and WSC Sports, sold to Snapchat. TAU President Joseph Klafter said in a statement, “Tel Aviv University is the most innovative and entrepreneurial university in Israel and I am proud that we arrived at the next required step, with the establishment of TAU Ventures, the new investment vehicle of the university.” Klafner said the initiative sets the university “in line with the leading universities in the world,” like MIT, Stanford, and Berkeley, which also have venture arms. Cohen said that “the advantage of the fund will be [in] identifying unique opportunities in early stages and suggested added value to the entrepreneurs among the students and our alumni of TAU.” Among the investors in the fund are Singapore-based Chartered High Tech Fund, Maxine Commercial Capital in Los Angeles, and additional investors from Canada. Eyal Agmoni, the head of Chartered Group said, “we made this investment out of our strong belief in the Israeli high-tech industry in general, and from knowing that a big part of entrepreneurship in Israel [involves] Tel Aviv University.” Bahzad Kianmahd, the co-founder and acting chairman and CEO of Maxine Commercial Capital said, “As an enthusiastic person in higher education and the future of Israel, I am proud to be a part of a fund which will operate under the TAU umbrella.” April 15, 2018 | Israel’s Partner Communications Company, which runs the low-cost cable and internet service Partner TV, announced a collaboration agreement in Israel with Amazon Prime Video. Partner TV customers will now “have access to the Amazon Prime Video service on Partner TV set-top box, which offers access to view a broad selection of global content and Amazon Prime original content, including TV series and movies,” Partner said in a statement . Partner TV said it is the first and only television service in Israel to offer Amazon Prime Video application on a set top box and the first OTT (Over the Top) service in the world to support this application on an Android TV set top box. Amazon made it’s Prime Video content available in 200 countries, including Israel in 2016 via computer, smartphone, and TV apps. This is the first partnership with a cable operator. Partner also offers Netflix free of charge for new subscribers for up to three months. The financial details of the Amazon-Partner deal were not disclosed. April 12, 2018 | Just before Israel’s annual Holocaust Remembrance Day on April 12, Israel’s official memorial to Holocaust victims Yad Vashem announced a cooperation with Israeli video platform startup Wibbitz. Yad Vashem will use Wibbitz to make Holocaust stories documented in texts and sound clips into video clips, through the company’s artificial intelligence platform. The goal is to create visual content that is shareable and can be easily distributed online. Wibbitz , founded in 2011 by Yotam Cohen and Zohar Dayan, creates video content for over 400 sites and has locations in Tel Aviv, New York, and Paris. The Jerusalem-based Yad Vashem was established in 1953 as a memorial dedicated to preserving the memory of Holocaust victims and those who fought Nazi oppressors as well as researching genocide and the Holocaust phenomenon. April 12, 2018 | Israeli smart oven food tech company Genie Enterprise has announced they have closed a Series A financing round, which was “oversubscribed at $10 million,” according to a statement . Carl Marks Securities acted as exclusive financial adviser for the deal and its principals were also investors. The round will help grow Genie in the United States. Founded in 2014, Genie’s food technology company develops and markets smart ovens that cook quick, but tasty meals at restaurant quality from fresh, dried ingredients without preservatives or artificial flavorings. Founded in 2014, Genie develops and markets smart ovens they call “kitchen-in-a-box,” which can cook restaurant-quality meals “at the touch of a button” in two to three minutes, from pods that carry fresh, dried ingredients. Genie also markets these pods. The Genie smart oven scans a barcode on the pod to cook the meal. The company began targeting Israeli hospitals, hotels, cafes, and businesses in 2017 and now hopes to do the same in the US. They have been used by companies such as Apple in Israel. April 12, 2018 | Sequoia Capital Israel General Partner Gili Raanan has announced he is launching a new cybersecurity venture capital fund named Cyberstarts, according to a press release. This is said to be the world’s first venture capital firm backed by cybersecurity entrepreneurs. “The fund’s unique model is introducing a fresh approach for pre-investment decision making process and post-investment portfolio services,” the statement said. The fund has already received $50 million in funding in a very short time, thanks to the support of various cybersecurity entrepreneurs, including Check Point co-founders Shlomo Kramer and Marius Nacht, Imperva co-founder Amichai Shulman, IBM-acquired Trusteer founders Mickey Boodaei and Rakesh Loonkar, Palo Alto Networks founder Nir Zuk, and Microsoft-acquired Adallom founder Assaf Rappaport. Sequoia capital is also an investor in the fund. The fund also includes 10 US-based Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) to support the decision making process. April 11, 2018 | OurCrowd, the leading global equity crowdfunding platform has announced that the recent exits of two companies in the past two days, its portfolio companies have achieved a total of 20 exits over the past five years. American footwear and apparel giant Nike announced Tuesday that they have acquired Israeli computer vision company Invertex for an undisclosed amount and San Francisco-based bike sharing service Jump is set to be acquired by Uber following a trial program with the company earlier this year. Other exits among the 20 include companies like Argus Cyber Security, which was acquired by Continental AG in 2017 for over $400 million, Shopial, a company that moves your online store to social networks, acquired by Magento in 2017, and ReWalk, a wearable robotics company for people with lower limb disabilities, who raised $36 million in an IPO on NASDAQ. Founded in 2013 by Jon Medved, OurCrowd currently has almost 25,000 accredited investors from over 112 countries. It has raised over $650 million and invested in 145 portfolio companies and funds. The company predicts it will surpass $1 billion in assets under management, raised through equity crowdfunding from investors. April 11, 2018 | Sources tell Israeli daily Globes that online orders at Israeli pharmaceutical chain Super-Pharm will soon be taken off shelves, packed and shipped by robots. The network has hired Tel Aviv-based startup CommonSense Robotics to operate a logistics center where products will automatically be packed by robots. The center is scheduled to launch in the next six months. Super-Pharm will pay Commonsense Robotics a monthly retainer to operate the center, provide robot equipment, and employ workers. The service is expected to shorten delivery time, cut labor costs for retailers, and even cut delivery cost. CommonSense Robotics, a Tel Aviv-based company founded in 2015  aiming to help online grocery retailers offer on-demand, one-hour deliveries using robotics and artificial intelligence, raised $20 million in a Series A funding round in February. April 10, 2018 | Palo Alto Networks, a cybersecurity company founded by Israeli Nir Zuk, announced its intent to acquire Israeli cybersecurity firm Secdo , which develops solutions for enterprise security operations teams for quick incident responses. Secdo’s patented technology “uses assisted learning combined with the only thread-level visibility to automatically investigate and respond to every alert from any security technology,” the company says. The terms of the agreement were not disclosed. “Secdo’s team of elite engineers will complement the deep security expertise and innovation inside the Palo Alto Networks research and development organization,” Palo Alto Networks wrote in a statement. Mark McLaughlin, chairman and CEO of Palo Alto Networks said, “With Secdo’s EDR capabilities as part of our platform, we will accelerate our ability to detect and prevent successful cyber attacks across the cloud, endpoint, and network.” Secdo co-founder and CEO Shai Morag said the company “delighted to join the Palo Alto Networks team,” adding that Secdo, based in Ra’anana, was founded “to dramatically increase visibility for security operations teams to reduce the time it takes to detect and respond to an alert. The combined capabilities of Secdo and Palo Alto Networks will provide customers the capabilities they need to swiftly and accurately detect and respond to cyber attacks.” Palo Alto Networks previously acquired Isreali startup LightCyber in 2017 for $105 million and Cyvera, an Israel-based cyber firm for some $200 million in 2014. Earlier this year, the Santa Clara, California-based firm announced the opening of a new R&D center in Tel Aviv. April 10, 2018 | Beijing’s Zhongguancun Science Park (Z-Park), dubbed “China’s Silicon Valley,” is set to open a liaison office in Tel Aviv, Chinese news service Xinhua reported , in an effort to strengthen channels of communication and tap into business opportunities in both countries. The announcement was made this week during a meeting between Tel Aviv Deputy Mayor Doron Sapir and Beijing Vice Mayor Yin Hejun leading a delegation included high-level executives of Z-Park. “Beijing and Tel Aviv, like China and Israel, are completely different in size, but share many common values: adopting technology and modernization, cherishing education, and striving to always improve our municipal systems,” Sapir was quoted by Xinhua as saying. Yin Hejun said, “We are thrilled to announce this liaison office in Tel Aviv, which is the center of the Israeli ecosystem, as another step in the cooperation between our cities, calling the Z-Park as “home to innovation and breakthrough technologies.” This will be Z-Park’s 11th liaison office across the world, according to the report. The tech hub is home to tech giants like Lenovo and caters to some 20,000 tech enterprises.