Israel Innovation 2.0

During the week of March 7, 2010, SolarEdge was named a Top 10 energy innovator by Fast Company. Digital advertising company Eyeblaster filed for a $115 million IPO and Apple rejected an app for the iPhone that detects radiation from the phone. For these stories and more, see this week’s 10 Israel-related headlines below.

Cleantech
1. Fast names SolarEdge top 10 innovator

2. Investing In Electric Cars

Investment
3. Todacell scores $1 million

4. Battery Ventures raises 1st new fund since ’07

5. Eyeblaster Files for $115 Million IPO

Information Technology
6. Voltaire brings InfiniBand switch to the masses

7. Redbeacon Fine Tunes Service, Goes Social, Continues To Be Awesome

Miscellaneous
8. App Detects iPhone Radiation; Apple Nukes

9. Survey: More women than ever hold managerial posts

10. ‘High-tech managers prefer to work with their army buddies’

During the week of February 1, 2009, SemantiNet released a Beta version of its FireFox add-on, Headup to the public and Shai Agassi talked electric cars at TED. Commtouch partnered with MailChannels and promising Israeli startups presented their technologies at the TechAviv meetup in Herziliyya. For these stories and more, check  below for the 13 Israel-related headlines from the week of February 1, 2009. 

Cleantech

1. Israeli startup grabs $5M for distributed solar thermal

2. Shai Agassi talks electric cars at TED

3. I’m Twittering Over Water In Jerusalem

Investment and Economy

4. Local hi-tech companies raise 27% less venture capital

5. Billions flow between Israel, Silicon Valley

6. Some Amazing New Startups (TechAviv)

Information Technology

7. New technology synopsizes video surveillance

8. MailChannels And CommTouch To Bring Premium Spam Filtering To Parrallels Plesk Panel

9. New technology synopsizes video surveillance

10. SemantiNet Announces headup Semantic Web Plugin for Firefox is Immediately Available as Public Beta

Miscellaneous

11. Why I’m heading back to the US

12.  Wanted: Work

13. An Improved Economic Outlook and Low Interest Rates Are Increasing the IT Spending In Israel states New Report

During the week of January 18, 2009, business was back to normal for better and for worse. Announcements were made that Israel is planning the largest desal plant and Varonis and SAManage received funding. On the other end, the Israel Venture Capital Research Center released VC funding numbers for the fourth quarter of 2008 that were expectedly very low and promising social search engine, Delver announced that unless it receives more funding or gets acquired in the next few weeks it will cease its operations. For these and the rest of the 18 Israel-related headlines from the week of January 18, check below. 

Cleantech

1. Israel plans largest desal plant in $513M deal

2. Cleantech Expert: “In Financial Crisis Context, Israeli Solar Energy Companies Could be Shining Stars”

Investments and Economy

3. Aviv VC raises half of what it hoped

4. EMC leads $15m round for Varonis

5. Global crisis hits local venture capital industry

6. Nokia, Intel Slump Torpedoes Israel Economy as Rockets Grounded 

7. SAManage Secures Series A Funding from Xenia Venture Capital

Information Technology

8. BPM VIEWPOINT: The Opportunity in Unstructured Business Process Management (ActionBase)

9. Cordys Process Factorytrade; Wins Best Cloud Management Solution

10. Leading Industry Analyst Positions Magic Software in Three Quadrant Reports on Application Infrastructure

11. ClickSoftware launches new system for customer interaction management

12. Kontera and Advertising

Telecom

13. Which companies will Nortel take down in its crash?

14. Skuku Embeds GIPS VoiceEngine

15. AudioCodes Announces Availability of VoIPerfect and High Definition VoIP on MIPS Technologies’ Cores

Miscellaneous

16. Michigan, Israeli companies share business growth ideas

17. Peres invites new envoys to join science and tech R&D council

18. Social Search Engine Delver On Death Watch

Though 2008 was clearly a tough year for companies and venture capital funds in Israel and worldwide, several announcements this week have given a better picture of the extent of its impact on Israel’s Silicon Wadi.

Globes reported this past week that Aviv Venture Capital raised $52 million for its Aviv II Fund last month but had originally set out to raise $100 million. It was also announced that social search technology startup, Delver, will be ceasing its operations in the next 30 days unless it raises necessary funds or gets sold.

In addition to these, research on venture capital funding in the fourth quarter of 2008 from the Israel Venture Capital Research Center shows how the global recession affected fundraising in Israel overall. According to a Jerusalem Post article on the research, in the fourth quarter, 109 Israeli hi-tech companies raised $394m. which was 34% below the $600m. raised in the previous quarter and 22% below the $503m. raised in the fourth quarter of 2007.

It’s not just on the funding side. Nortel’s recent bankruptcy filing has raised questions about what toll it will have on Israeli companies that were financially intertwined with it through business contracts and partnerships. Israeli companies expected to take a hit include AudioCodes and TTI and possibly Radvision and Alveron.

Things might continue to be gloomy and hard in 2009, but it won’t be the end of innovation and entrepreneurship in Israel. The layoffs that have been a result of the economic crisis are producing a new crop of entrepreneurs and startups that will have better skills to succeed in the long term using less money should they survive the downturn.

The 12th annual Israel Journey took place earlier today in Tel Aviv. During the conference, which is organized by Ernst & Young Israel and Israeli business newspaper, Globes, Globes announced its top 10 Israeli companies for 2008-2009 as follows:

YCD Multimedia Ltd.
Tulip Medical Ltd.
Dune Networks, Ltd.
Aternity Inc.
Payoneer, Inc.
N-Trig, Ltd.
Altair Semiconductor Ltd.
Vascular Biogenics (3rd Place)
InfoGin, Ltd. (2nd Place, picture on right is of CEO and Founder, Eran Wyler)
Amobee, Ltd. (“Start-up of the Year”)

Congratulations to the top 10 start-ups!

More on the conference to come tomorrow.

About the author: Lisa Damast currently resides in Israel. Any questions or inquiries regarding this blog can be directed to her via email at lisa (at) israelinnovation20 (dot) com. She can also be followed on Twitter, where she covers additional Israeli technology companies and headlines among other topics.

During the week of October 26, 2008, news continued out of Israel of the first lay-offs resulting from the turning economy. While companies such as AmDocs and Delver announced cut people, Check Point asserted that though its customers were being affected by the economy, the information security company wasn’t at the moment impacted enough by it to need to let go of any of its employees. The threat of Israel’s universities not opening this year was solved when Olmert ordered a NIS 515 million budget hike. Of course, this wasn’t the only news coming out of Israel this past week. For the full 15 Israel-related technology headlines, check below.

Cleantech
1. LucidLogix raises $18 million for parallel graphics processing technology

2. The Inaugural Israel Cleantech Tour to Arrive in California

3. Israeli cleantech start-ups head to the US to seek investment

4. Argonaut Increases Renewable Energy Interests with SolarReserve

Investments
5. Is The VC Vault Closing for Cleantech?

6. VC Drought? 70 Million Exceptions To The Rule

7. TC50 DemoPit Company Joongel Nets Investment for Stealth Product

8. $5.5 Million BlackBerry Fund Invests In Future Mobile Harvest

Information Technology
9. Will nanotechnology take over IT security?

10. MellanoxTechnologies Ranked Number 28 in Deloitte’s Technology Fast 50 Program for Silicon Valley Software and Information Technology Companies

11. Innovative data solution and remarkable funding rounds help secure nomination as ‘Best New Company of the Year’

12. Check Point Software CEO sees no layoffs

Miscellaneous
13. Digital billboards get a little creepier

14. Mich. may be hot spot for Israeli businesses

15. Higher education crisis ends as Olmert orders NIS 515 million budget hike

About the author: Lisa Damast is the Membership Manager of ebizQ.net and currently resides in Israel. Any questions or inquiries regarding this blog or ebizQ membership services can be directed to her via email at ldamast (at) ebizq (dot) net. She can also be followed on Twitter, where she covers additional Israeli technology companies and Israel-related headlines and topics.

*About the Weekly Headlines image: The Star of David in the image was found on Flickr and is used under the Creative Commons license. It was originally uploaded by Flickr member, zeevveez. The overall Weekly Headlines image was designed by Lisa Damast.

The week of November 4th Israel’s technology sector saw Shai Agassi’s Project Better Place pick up steam and AOL buy Quigo. Along the way, the high-tech sector received estimates that it would break $32 billion in revenues in 2010 and produced a breakthrough in cellphone security technology. For details and more, check out this week’s slideshow. (Now with convenient section headers: State of Israel Technology, Companies raise funds, Busy week for Telecomunications, M&A Talk, and additional Headlines to Consider.)

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