Tel Aviv at sunset, Israel Startup Israel
New Startups / VC Funding
Snyk Raises $196.5 Million – Even Qatar Invests – But Valuation Falls
Snyk, an Israeli cybersecurity startup in the field of cloud-native application security, raised $196.5 million in a Series G investment led by QIA (Qatar Investment Authority). While this is a whopping sum, it left the company with a valuation of only $7.4 billion. This after Snyk looked to holding an $8.5 billion IPO just one year ago.
But the big story here is that Qatar’s QIA is investing in Synk at all. Qatar, host of this year’s World Cup soccer championship, is an Arab Gulf state with no diplomatic ties with Israel. So money does talk after all.
The drop in valuation comes as little surprise… Read More Here
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Equinom Raises $35 Million For Alternative Foods
Equinom, an Israeli agtech startup offering plant based nutrition solutions, raised $35 million in funding led by Synthesis Capital (Synthesis), a leading global food technology and alternative protein investor. Including a $20 million Series C financing round the company held in June 2021, Equinom has now brought in more than $71 million to date.
Equinom has an innovative method for improving seeds which the company states allows it to also offer high-quality source ingredients.
Israel has always been at the forefront of… Read More Here
Villa Metaverse Creation Platform Hits 500,000 Active Users Over Meta Quest
Villa, an Israeli virtual reality company, now has 500,000 active users and reports $1 million ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue) over Meta Quest. A venture of RealVR.ai, Villa is an immersive collaboration platform where professionals, content creators, gamers, consumers, and organizations, can build immersive Metaverse environments using “intuitive and powerful tools.”
The Villa platform continuously ranks in the opening 30 Most Popular and Top Selling Apps on Meta Quest – where there are hundreds of options from gaming to productivity and exercise apps and can be installed directly from the Quest Store. Additional headset brands are supported… Read More Here
Mixtiles’ Daydream Is World’s First Service For Creating AI-Generated Framed Art
Mixtiles, an Israeli startup that innovates the home design space, released its Daydream, a service powered by OpenAI’s DALL-E system that allows consumers to use generative AI to easily create personalized, framed art for their homes. The company says the integration of generative AI into Mixtiles’ product design furthers the company’s mission to make it easy for people to create homes they love.
Daydream, boasts Mixtiles, connects DALL-E’s text-to-image output with Mixtiles’ technology, enabling the “creation, framing, and purchase of personalized wall art, all in less than a minute.” Customers can input a text description of what they want the artwork to show, and with a single click, Daydream presents them with several styles and variations of the described image… Read More Here
Israeli Scientists Breed Chickens That Only Lay Female Chicken Eggs
Poultry by Huminn (formerly known as NRS Poultry) is an Israeli agtech startup that has somehow found a way to breed chickens that only lay female eggs. This is – to say the least – an interesting breakthrough. Feminists the world over will certainly see this as a step to life without men – so men watch out.
But how can you have just females with no male to fertilize the eggs? Well, there will still be a need for roosters to rule the roost, so to speak. But what is the advantage here…. Read More Here
Mergers and Acquisitions
Abu Dhabi State Fund Taking Over Israel’s Phoenix Insurance For $680 Million
The Abu Dhabi Development Holding Co. (ADQ) is buying a controlling interest Israel’s largest insurance concern, Israel Phoenix Assurance Ltd. ADQ is acquiring a 25% stake in the company for NIS 2.3 billion, or roughly $680 million.
Phoenix currently has a market cap of NIS 9.5 billion ($2.8 billion).
Also, Phoenix CEO Eyal Ben Simon and Chairman Benny Gabbay are reportedly buying a 2% stake in the company for…. Read More Here
Illusive Networks Sold To America’s Proofpoint Inc.
Illusive Networks, an Israeli cyber defense startup, has been acquired by Proofpoint Inc., an American cybersecurity and compliance company. Terms of the acquisition have not been revealed.
Founded in 2014, lllusive says that the company’s system continuously discovers and automatically remediates privileged identity risks that are exploited in all ransomware and other cyberattacks. Despite best-practice investments to protect identities, including deployment of PAM and MFA, 1 in 6 enterprise… Read More Here
Nano Dimension Stops Own CEO In Takeover Bid
Nano Dimension, an Israeli company in 3D printed electronics, will not be taken over by its CEO Yoav Stern. The company’s shareholders on Thursday rejected a bid by Stern to have Nano Dimension, which is traded on the NASDAQ, reprice his stock option, reported Calcalist.
Stern wanted to lower the share price of his options so that he could afford to excursive more of them. At the same time, Nano Dimension shareholders rejected an attempt to almost double the company’s total number of shares. This would have made it harder for external group to try and takeover the company thereby making it easier for Stern to take control… Read More Here
Other Business Stories
Chevron Expanding Tamar Gas Field Operation
Chevron, one of the world’s largest oil and energy companies, is expanding the company’s operation in Israel’s Tamar natural gas field in the Mediterranean. Chevron and its partners in the field are set to spend $673 million to expand gas production there. The company said that it is doing so because of increased demand.
Natural gas is more in demand these days as courtiers look to shift to cleaner burning fuels. Natural gas has a much smaller carbon footprint than coal and so burning it for energy releases much… Read More Here
Sodastream, Playtika And More Making Layoffs
Sodastream, Playtika, Otonomo and CyCognito are all making cutbacks. Unicorns, new firms and companies that have already “made it” with their exits are all suffering these days as the world is going through a financial crisis.
The Israeli-founded mobile gaming giant Playtika is laying off 610 employees, or 15% of the company’s workforce. The move comes just six months after American private equity firm Joffre Capital bought Playtika’s 20% controlling stake, which left the company with… Read More Here
Israeli Computer Startup Brodmann17 Shutting Down
Brodmann17, a six-year-old Israeli startup that developed software for computer vision applications for automated vehicles, is the latest Startup Nation victim of the worldwide financial crisis. The company is shutting down entirely, letting go of 30 employees.
Brodmann17 is shuttering at a time when signs seem to be pointing that we have come to the end of the tunnel for the current state of high inflation. Gasoline and oil prices have already come down… Read More Here
Time 100 Gala And Impact Awards Coming To Jerusalem
Time, the global media brand, will host the TIME100 Gala and Impact Awards in Jerusalem, Israel, in May 2023. The event will be presented in partnership with philanthropist Sylvan Adams and will recognize individuals from around the world contributing to building a better world through innovation and social impact.
However, Time isn’t what it used to be. Once upon a Time, the magazine was the biggest and best known weekly source of news in the world. The company expanded, owing numerous other publications and businesses. Time was so big that it eventually merged with Warner Brothers to form Time Warner…. Read More Here
