Israel Innovation 2.0

After watching some of the livestream of the TechAviv founder-investor’s meetup in Herziliyya last month and posting  about it, I had the opportunity to attend the monthly meetup last Thursday and listen in person to Israeli startups, SundaySky, FlyScreen and HYPick present their technologies. 

After SundaySky co-founder Yaniv Axen spoke about the company’s impressive dynamic video production technology, Gilad de Vries of Carmel Ventures, which recently led SundaySky’s $8 million A round, talked about what he looks for when considering funding a company. It can be assumed that de Vries and his colleagues applied these same things when Carmel Ventures agreed to lead news and blog recommendation engine, Outbrain’s $12 million B round that was announced this week.  

Here is a video of de Vries’ presentation at TechAviv last week.

During the week of of January 4, 2008, aside from the escalation of Israel’s operation in Gaza and more attacks on Israeli websites, one of the biggest stories in the tech world was the launch of Israel-based Ctera’s new storage device. Another was that Israel issued its first solar licenses for solar power plants. Despite the poor economic and VC investment outlooks, at least three Israeli companies (including Ctera) announced they raised funds. There was also news of an imminent Aladdin sale that sent its stocks rocketing. For these stories and more, you can view this week’s 15 Israel-related headlines below.

Israel-Hamas Conflict (Technology side)

1. Israel-Gaza Conflict Spills Over Into Twitter

2. Hackers Take the Fight Over Gaza Online

3. Digital World: How to beat anti-Israel hackers at their own game

4. Spam poses as CNN story about Israel-Hamas conflict

Cleantech

5. Israel issues first solar licenses

6. Cleantech Investment Slowdown Predicted in 2009

Investments

7. SundaySky Secures First Institutional Round of $8 million from Carmel Ventures and Globespan Capital Partners

8. TraderTools Raises $7.5 Million

Information Technology

9. Aladdin shares surge on report company sale is near

10. Start-up Ctera will offer cloud storage through carriers

11. Save Mart Supermarkets Deploys Integrated Retalix Supply Chain Software

12. Gigya: December 23rd Was Biggest Day For Our Widgets, Ever

Miscellaneous

13. Freeverse Announces Slot Car Racing Game for IPhone

14. Eyes in the sky

15. Fish memories underestimated

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