Israel Innovation 2.0

During the week of September 19, 2010, it was revealed that interactive video ad company and 2010 Technology Pioneer Innovid raised $4 million. SaaS company, Panaya raised $6 million from an SAP co-founder after it was sold and Fring continues to challenge VoIP giant Skype, this time with $0.01 per minute VoIP calls. For these stories and more, see this week’s headlines below.

Cleantech
1. Large Golan wind farm to be national infrastructure priority

2. Ormat Technologies Secures US Funds For Geothermal Plants

Investment and Economy
3. Video: Interactive Video Ad Firm Innovid Raises $4 Million from Deutsche Telekom

4. Poju Zabludowicz cashes in on software house Panaya with NIS 20 million profit

5. Vardi: High tech not connected to economy

Information Technology
6. Iran Says Nuclear Plant Unaffected by Virus as Industrial Computers Struck

7. Israeli Startup Fring Challenges Skype With $0.01 Per Minute VoIP Calls

Miscellaneous
8. Non drip tomatoes from Israel

9. Israel’s Amobee makes list of world’s most valuable startups

Amobee Media Systems and Innovid have been named Technology Pioneers 2010 by the World Economic Forum. The two startups along with 24 others, including Twitter and Amiando, were identified for developing new technology that can “change and improve the way business and society operate.”

Here’s a little more about the startups:

Led by CEO Zohar Levkovitz and Gary Schofield, Amobee has developed advertising server technology for mobile operators that dynamically “inserts relevant ads into different mobile entertainment and communication channels” that users can interact with.

Founded in 2006 by Tal Chalozin and CEO Zvika Netter, Innovid provides publishers and advertisers with the ability to monetize online video by integrating brand advertising into relevant video content. Innovids technology enables advertisers “to insert 3D objects into videos post-production” that blend into the rest of the video but still attracts the user to click and interact with it.

As Technology Pioneers, Amobee and Innovid will have access to the World Economic Forum’s elite network of members and can attend the annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, among other events.

Editor’s note: This was originally posted on TechAviv.com.

Israel as the first gasoline-free economy sounds pretty far off to anyone who has walked down a major street in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem lately and was showered with soot from an old public transit bus passing by, but it is in the works. Former Israeli whizkid and SAP Chief of Products, Shai Agassi, who left the company in March with plans “to help convert his native Israel and its neighbor Jordan into gasoline-free economies with nationwide electronic transportation systems,” has raised $200 million for his stealth-mode company, Project Better Place to make electric cars and to use existing battery technologies, which are enough to get cars to go about 100 miles before recharging.

According to the news release, the company has received funding from Israel Corp., an Israel-based oil, trade and shipping conglomerate (which invested $100 million), and VantagePoint Venture Partners among others.

This announcement is impressive considering 9 months ago he was still working hard at SAP and talking about plans for SAP to go green. Hear his thoughts on the environment and SAP below in a video interview of him from the World Economic Forum at Davos this past January.