A week of major investments in Israeli startups in all sectors has the local high-tech community excited. While hibob, the cloud platform that helps businesses manage their people, announced a $7.5 million funding round and website enhancement company, FortVision, brought in $2.5 million, five other companies posted double-digit funding rounds over a seven-day period.
Singaporean-Israeli image recognition startup Trax Image Recognition scored a $40 million Series C funding round this week.
A leader in image recognition for retail, Trax says it will use its latest round of investment to expand its global operations with a focus in North America and a new product line for top tier retailers.
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Leveraging the company’s image recognition platform, Trax provides market data solutions and services to tier-one manufacturers and retailers globally.
Trax has 130 employees in its R&D and Computer Vision Center of Excellence in Tel Aviv.
“Trax is very much a part of the thriving high-tech scene in Israel, ” says Trax Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Joel Bar-El. “We have pioneered a proprietary deep learning platform, which is a form of Artificial Intelligence, to power our image recognition process.”
EarlySense, a leader in contact-free continuous monitoring solutions, completed a $25 million round of funding, led by Israel’s largest bank, Bank Hapoalim, with participation from Pitango Venture Capital, JK&B Capital and other previous investors.
The funds will be used to fuel growth in the medical space and digital health arenas.
EarlySense’s contact-free monitoring system enables healthcare professionals to track patient heart rate, respiratory rate and movement constantly through a sensor placed under the mattress.
EarlySense technology also powers several consumer health products including Samsung’s SleepSense, iFit’s Sleep Sensor and Beurer’s SE 80 Sleep Expert.
Storage startup Weka.IO closed a Series B funding round worth $22.25 million, led by Walden Riverwood Ventures with participation from Qualcomm, Norwest Venture Partners and Gemini Israel Ventures.
The new funding will be used to accelerate Weka.IO’s go-to-market strategy, with immediate plans to expand sales and marketing in the US. The company says it will also apply the funds to continue building an engineering team in Tel Aviv and San Jose, US.
“The infusion of capital enables Weka.IO to further innovate with differentiated products and bring to market the next generation releases of software to expand the use cases and addressable market, ” said Michael Raam, President and CEO of Weka.IO. “The funds will also be utilized to grow our customer support and business teams in multiple geographical locations.”
SundaySky, the SmartVideo customer acquisition and retention platform, raised $30 million in a series D round. The company says this additional $30 million brings its total capital invested to date to approximately $67 million.
“This investment will scale our growth, and we will continue to serve our global brand customers where the market demand for personalized communication is. It will support our rapidly expanding customer base and continued product innovation, ” said SundaySky CEO Shmulik Weller.
Zimperium, a leading enterprise mobile threat protection provider, announced a $25 million Series C funding round earlier this week. Private equity firm Warburg Pincus led the round with participation from existing investors Sierra Ventures, Telstra Ventures and Lazarus Israel Opportunities Fund LLLP.
Zimperium is headquartered in San Francisco and has offices in Tel Aviv. It was founded in 2010 by CTO Zuk Avraham and CRO Elia Yehuda.
