Israel High Tech Scene and Other Business Stories May 20 – May 26

Tel Aviv at sunset, Israel Startup Israel

Israel High Tech Scene and Other Business Stories May 20 – May 26

New Startups / VC Funding
RedDress Raises $43 Million for New Way To Treat Chronic Wounds
RedDress, an Israeli medtech startup that has developed a proprietary blood-based technology to treat chronic wounds that it says comes with almost “zero risk” of infection, raised $26 million in a Series D financing round with participation from ATHOS Biopharma GmbH, and other life science investors.

The company has now raised a total of $43 million to… Read More Here

Israel’s Classiq Joins NVIDIA and Rolls Royce in Quantum Computing Breakthrough
Classiq, an Israeli startup that aims to make it easier for developers to create quantum algorithms and applications, has joined major worldwide companies NVIDIA and Rolls-Royce in making what the firms described as a quantum computing breakthrough aimed at bringing ever-increasing efficiency to jet engines. Using NVIDIA’s quantum computing platform, the companies have designed and simulated the world’s largest quantum computing circuit for computational fluid dynamics (CFD) — a circuit that measures… Read More Here

Israeli Startup VeinWay Can Clear Blood Clots
VeinWay is an Israeli medtech startup developing new technologies to clear blood clots. The firm has so far raised $2.5 million for the treatment of venous disease.

Johns Hopkins Medicine explains that chronic venous insufficiency occurs when your leg veins don’t allow blood to flow back up to your heart. Normally, the valves in your veins make sure that blood flows toward your heart. But when these valves don’t work well, blood can also flow backward. This can cause blood to… Read More Here

L1ght Goes Dark, QD-SOL Wins Aviram Foundation Awards
The top two winners of the 2023 Aviram Foundation startup competition were the Israeli firms. QD-SOL, an Israeli startup that develops technology to produce green quantum hydrogen in order to help fight climate change, took first place and fellow Israeli startup Carbon Blue, which develops technology that can remove excess CO2 from oceans, came in second. Meanwhile, L1ght, an Israeli startup that offered technology to identify and analyze harmful online content, has failed and is shutting down after it failed to find a buyer. The firm already told… Read More Here

Israeli Travel Insurance Startup Faye Raises $10 Million
Faye, an Israeli travel insurance startup, announced today a successful Series A fundraising round that added $10 million to its coffers, taking the total capitalization to $18 million.

Munich Re Ventures led the fundraising and was joined by current investors Viola Ventures and F2 Venture Capital, with new investments coming from… Read More Here

DouxMatok Releases New Sugar Substitute – Rebfands as Incredo
DouxMatok, an Israeli foodtech startup that offers a clean-label sugar reduction solution, raised $30 million in a Series C financing round led by dsm-firmenich Venturing and Sienna Venture Capital, along with strategic commercial partners such as Ferrero. The company also announced a rebranding and will now be known as Incredo.

Founded in 2014 by CEO Eran Baniel and the inventor of its product Professor Avraham Baniel, DouxMatok – now Incredo – says it is on a mission to… Read More Here

Mergers and Acquisitions
Stratasys Might Merge With Desktop Metal at $1.8 Billion Valuation
Israeli 3D printer manufacturer Stratasys is looking to acquire the American 3D printing company Desktop Metal Inc. According to a report by Bloomberg, if the acquisition takes place the combined new company would be worth $1.8 billion. The proposed deal is said to be a stock swap.

This would be the second acquisition made by Stratasys in the last year. In August 2022, it acquired the German additive… Read More Here

Serverfarm Sold To Canada’s Manulife At $1.5 Billion Valuation
Serverfarm, an Israeli data center owner and operator, is being acquired by the Canadian firm Manulife Investment Management. The firms have not yet officially revealed the terms of the deal, but Israeli publication Globes reported that Manulife is paying as much as $700 million for a controlling share of Serverfarm, which would give the firm a $1.5 billion valuation.

The companies did say, however, that the acquisition of Serverfarm is... Read More Here

Other Business Stories
Shekel Falls To Three Year Low Against the US Dollar
The Shekel fell to a three year low against the US Dollar on Wednesday. It finished the day – according to the official report from the Bank of Israel (BOI) – trading at 3.7310 Shekels to the Dollar, having lost 1.607% in value for the day.

Three years ago the world was stuck in the middle of the worst part of the Covid crisis. So, with no tourism and no opportunities to… Read More Here

Bank of Israel Makes 10th Straight Interest Rate Hike
The Monetary Committee of the Bank of Israel (BOI) on Monday decided to increase the interest rate by 0.25 percentage points to 4.75 percent. This marks the tenth consecutive time the BOI has raised the interest rate. The last time it did so was just a little over one month ago when, in April, it also raised the rate by 0.25 percentage points. The reason for all of these raises is simple – inflation.

Inflation is not just a problem for Israel, however. There is a worldwide financial crisis and since the start of the war…. Read More Here

BoI Deputy Governor Connects Rate Hikes to Netanyahu Government’s Politics
Bank of Israel (BOI) Deputy Governor Andrew Abir said that Israel needed to raise interest rates because of the falling Shekel. The Monetary Committee of the BOI Monday announced its decision to increase the interest rate by 0.25 percentage points to 4.75 percent, marking the tenth consecutive time the BOI has raised the interest rate.

But in its announcement, the BOI said the move… Read More Here