New Startups / VC Funding
Cyolo Enters Deal With New Investor IBM
Cyolo, an Israeli cyber security startup that develops Zero Trust Network Access 2.0 (ZTNA 2.0) solutions for IT and OT, received a new investment from IBM Ventures. Together IBM Ventures and Cyolo say they plan to collaborate and help modernize authentication for digital businesses.
The news comes just a few months after Cylo raised $60 million in a Series B round of funding.
In addition to financial investment… Read More Here
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Exceed Raises $8 Million For Investment Platform
Exceed, an Israeli fintech startup that has developed a marketplace that it says allows both fans and retail investors to participate in the success of top talent, raised $8 million in a Seed funding round led by private investment firm BRM Group The startup says that its goal is to bring creatives, investors, and fans together through a platform that allows any artist or talent to partner with their audience via SEC compliant IPOs.
Music industry veteran Anthony Martini was named the company’s new president… Read More Here
Oriient Secures $11 Million For Indoor Positioning Solution
Oriient, an Israeli startup that offers the first GPS-like service indoors, raised $11 million in a Series A funding round. This brings the company’s total investment to date to $16 million.
Have you ever been inside a store or shopping mall so huge that you actually got lost? How about a football stadium or hotel and convention center? And they keep on making malls larger and larger, like the new American Dream mall… Read More Here
SensePass Raises $3 Million To Challenge Credit Card Establishment
SensePass, an Israeli fintech startup that offers new tech for payment options to compete with the established worldwide credit card companies, raised $3 million in new funding from Menara Ventures, Direct Insurance (Bituach Yashir), and angel investors. The company has now raised $5 million to date for its goal of challenging the dominance of the current credit card oligopoly.
SensePass explains that today the retail payments market is dominated by the “credit card model monopoly” with Visa, Mastercard, and others. And, of course, there are other options such as PayPal and Venmo…. Read More Here
Israel’s Steakholder Foods Files New ‘Fat’ Patent
Steakholder Foods Ltd., an Israeli foodtech startup developing a suite of advanced manufacturing technologies to produce cultured meat products and formerly known as MeaTech 3D, has filed a provisional patent application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), regarding methods and systems for adipocytes differentiation – in other words, “fat differentiation.” The company’s investors include none other than Ashton Kutcher and Guy Oseary, who invested in the company one year ago.
This is also the company that can provide Jews with kosher pork. Unfortunately, however, many rabbis will not provide something called pork with kosher certification so Steakholder needs to call it something else… Read More Here
IPOs and Unicorns
TripActions Hits $9.2 Billion Valuation
TripActions, an Israeli startup and a unicorn that offers travel tech solutions, has increased its valuation to $9.2 billion after the company raised $300 million in new investment. The raise is a combination of $154 million in equity from new and existing financial investors and a $150 million structured capital transaction led by Coatue.
TripActions’ travel bookings are up nearly 5x year-over-year and Liquid’s performance was even stronger, with spend volume up 7.5x… Read More Here
Mergers and Acquisitions
Israeli Chipmaker Banias Sells To Alphawave For $240 Million
Banias Labs, an Israel-based optical Digital Signal Processing (“DSP”) chip developer for data centers, has been acquired by Alphawave IP Group, which develops high-speed connectivity solutions for technology infrastructure, for $240 million.
The acquisition is funded out of existing cash and additional financing. Alphawave has obtained $210 million of Senior Secured Credit Facilities, comprising a five-year $110 million Revolving Credit Facility… Read More Here
Other Business Stories
Energean Says It Found 15 Billion CM Of Gas In Israel’s Hermes Field
Energean, the British energy company which operates Israeli natural gas fields in the Mediterranean Sea, announced that there could be as much as 15 billion cubic meters of natural gas in its Hermes field, located to the southeast of Israel’s Karish field.
“Detailed analysis of the data collected by the well is ongoing, with the aim of refining volumetric estimates and potential commerciality for both the discovery and the full area,” Energean said…. Read More Here
Elbit Systems Of America Gets $107 Million New U.S. Military Contract
Elbit Systems of America LLC, a subsidiary of the Israeli defense firm Elbit Systems, was awarded an order valued at approximately $107 million for the supply of Enhanced Night Vision Goggle – Binocular (ENVG-B) systems, spare parts, logistics support, and test equipment, for the U.S. Army. The order will be executed in Roanoke, Virginia and will be supplied during the years 2023 and 2024.
This order is part of an Other Transaction Authority (OTA) contract that Elbit Systems of America received in 2020, with a potential… Read More Here
UBS Says Tel Aviv Real Estate At High Bubble Risk
According to Union Bank Switzerland (UBS), Tel Aviv is at serious risk of seeing a real estate bubble burst in the near future. This is the first time that Tel Aviv was cited as a bubble risk by UBS and it came in eighth on the list behind major world cities like Frankfurt and Toronto.
Israelis have been complaining for years about the high price of rent and new homes. It is part of the overall problem of the country’s high cost of living. New apartment buildings are going up everywhere in areas like… Read More Here
Intel Making Massive Layoffs Including Israel’s Habana Labs
Habana Labs, an Israeli chipmaker and an Intel Subsidiary, is being forced to lay off 10% of its workforce as part of Intel’s overall cutbacks and worldwide layoffs. The move is being made as a result of the worldwide financial crisis that has seen stock markets tumble everywhere.
Habana Labs was acquired by Intel in 2020 for $2 billion… Read More Here
BetterSeeds Exports Newly Developed Proprietary Medicinal Cannabis Seeds From Israel
BetterSeeds Ltd., an Israel-based AgTech company that uses gene-editing technology including CRISPR to develop new variety of cannabis seeds and agricultural seeds, made the first-ever shipment of cannabis seeds from Israel to Canada. This came just three months after the company made the first export of such seeds from Israel in history. The company said that these were hybrid seeds that were developed by BetterSeeds and it calls them the first fully stable and uniform medical cannabis seeds in the world
This new shipment is the first to leave Israel containing a variety of medical cannabis seeds to be used for medicinal…. Read More Here