Israel Innovation 2.0

Inside Israeli Technology

technology-business-crossroadsIlluminate Ventures, an early stage VC fund outside of San Francisco,  recently released a white paper on the performance of female entrepreneurs in tech in the U.S. The paper helps support previous research that shows higher success rates of ventures that are lead by women.

Some of Illuminate’s key findings include:

  • Fewer Failures: Despite often being capital-constrained, women-owned businesses are more likely to survive the transition from raw start-up to established company than the average.
  • Growing Influence in Tech: Women-owned or led firms are the fastest growing sector of new venture creation in the U.S., growing at five times the rate of all new firms between 1997 and 2006 – now representing nearly 50% of all privately held businesses.
  • Expanded IP Contributions: From 1985 to 2005, the annual number of U.S. female-invented fractional software patents increased 45-fold – three times the average growth rate in that sector.
  • Impact of Women Investors: Women now represent just over 15 percent of angel investors, but just 5%-7% of partner-level high-tech venture capital investors in the U.S. Firms with women investment partners are 70 percent more likely to lead an investment in a woman entrepreneur than those with only male partners.

Although these numbers are lower in Israel, efforts are continuing to be made to change that. Earlier today the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology and Google hosted “TECHLEADERS: Becoming a person of influence” in Tel Aviv. The event was a workshop that focused on helping women build the skills they need to break through into positions of leadership.

Note: To view Illuminate’s other key findings or to get the full paper, click here.

Image via Sprengben [why not get a friend].

During the week of June 20, 2010, Vringo announced the pricing of its IPO. Motorola’s latest Android phone, Droid X, comes with Swype, a finger-tracing text-entry, and Israeli business continue to look to the East for opportunities. For these stories and more, see this week’s headlines below.

Cleantech
1. Potato Batteries May Power The Future

2. New Wind Venture Seen as Bridge of Peace Across the Green Line

Investment and Economy
3. Israeli businesses look East to offset weak Western markets

4. Vringo, Inc. Announces Pricing of $11,003,200 Initial Public Offering

Information Technology
5. Swype looks beyond Droid X to the iPhone

6. MiniFrame Leverages DisplayLink Technology for Efficient Multi-User Computing

7. Internet whizzes recruited to IDF intelligence unit

8. Perfecto Mobile Receives Funding from Vodafone Ventures to Expand Its Mobile Handsets and Applications Testing Business

Miscellaneous
9. Computer program that detects depression in bloggers’ texts

10. comScore Reports Top 20 Web Properties in Israel

11. Israeli IT Can Help With U.S. Health Reform

During the week of June 13th, news broke that IBM is in talks to buy Israel’s Storwize. A professor has found a way to develop potato batteries that can provide cheap power and collaboration between high-tech companies in Israel and India is expected to increase. For these stories and more, see this week’s headlines below.

Cleantech
1. Israel a Model for Alternative Energy

2. Israeli-developed boiled potato batteries may provide cheap power

Investments and Economy
3. Israel Economy Grows 3.6% in First Quarter on Exports (Update2)

4. Israeli, Indian high-tech industries to collaborate

5. IBM negotiating purchase of Israeli startup

Information Technology
6. Anobit breaks MLC flash barrier

7. Fighting PC Delays, Hourglass by Hourglass (Soluto)

8. 9 Israel-Based Female Tech Entrepreneurs on Twitter

9. Emblaze rubbishes Else rumours

Miscellaneous
10. More gender equality at Israeli workplaces than rest of OECD, study shows

11. The best company to work for in Israel is American

12. Playing games on Microsoft’s Kinect is a blast (hands-on videos)

13. Israel high-tech billionaire gives millions to make lecturers nicer

Earlier this week, BostInnovation, a tech blog focused on the Greater Boston Area community, published a list of 12 of its favorite Boston-area female CEOs on Twitter. The list included the CEOs of Constant Contact, ZipCar and social media marketing companies among others and is intended to encourage members of the community to follow these female executives and learn from them.

It is often said that one of the ways to attract and retain more women in tech is to give them good role models. In addition to continued discussion on the topic and increased efforts to build a community and network of female entrepreneurs, there is still a lot more to be done to encourage more entrepreneurs. In the spirit of BostInnovation, here is a list of 9 Israel-based female entrepreneurs in tech on Twitter and a recent tweet of theirs. Please note this is by no means a comprehensive list. Feel free to add other female founders and CEOs in the comments below.

@darshu: Daria Shualy, founder of fashion social network, Sense of Fashion (@senseofashion).

Stylist Laurie Brucker creates a breezy bohemian look for you, on the Sense of Fashion blog http://www.senseofashion.com/blog/ @lauriebstyle

Daria-Shualy-Sense-of-Fashion

Daria Shualy

@yaelbeeri: Yael Beeri, founder of the Tel Aviv Beer Tweetup and co-founder of @TodayBackIn.

Hey Israeli tweeps & tweepettes, I met @zoharwine today, he moved back here from England, let’s welcome him to our Twitter community 🙂

@oritHashay: Orit Hashay, Associate at @CarmelVentures and founder of Ramkol.co.il and mit4mit.co.il.

At Oranim 1 – Microsoft online. With Yair Goldfinger & @yarongalai #HTIA.

@kloostermania: Karin Kloosterman, founder of GreenProphet.com, an environmental blog focused on the Middle East (@greenprophet).

Israel’s Organic Goats with the Wind Farm is Delicious Eco-Tourismhttp://goo.gl/fb/J9OGQ

@amitos: Amit Knaani,  co-founder of Vikido, a video messaging service designed for young kids (@vikidoteam).

Oh, this is cute (for kids) games/sites http://kidszone.schoolwebsite.co.uk/

@soltzvi: Sol Tzvi, cofounder of Genieo.

@Scobleizer mentioned #genieo on stage at #tcdisrupt as one of the great companies that filtering news stream

@yaelelish: Yael Elish, Founder of eSnips, VP Product at @waze and currently at a start-up in stealth.

Just installed @waze on my mobile phone – it’s a free navigation app with fun gaming & social elements! http://bit.ly/LkkkW

@michts: Michal Tsur, co-founder of Kaltura, an open source online video platform (@kaltura).

RT @Kaltura Kaltura thought-leadership piece in VentureBeat on HTML5 video : How JavaScript will lead the way to open video,http://bit.ly/ckpKMk

@blondmobile: Jasmine Aharon, co-founder of Mobile Monday Tel Aviv (@MoMoTLV).

Facebook and Google Maps Dominate Smartphone App Usage [STUDY] ttp://2.ly/bsfc

Who else would you add to this list? Let us know in the comments!

(Above image via jonklinger under creative commons.)

Disclosure: I am a GreenProphet.com contributor.

Related Posts:
Celebration of Ada Lovelace Day: 6 women who have contributed to Israel’s hi-tech industry
Why TechAviv and technology in general lacks women (Part 1)
What is keeping women out of technology in Israel?
Women in Technology: Rony Ross, Panorama Software (Interview)

During the week of June 6, 2010, Tigo Energy announced it raised $10 million to expand international sales and manufacturing capabilities. Check Point acquired Liquid Machines and Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz debuted at the annual High-Tech Industry Association Conference an extensive plan to help Israel’s high-tech sector. For these stories and more, see this week’s headlines below.

Cleantech
1. Ormat Set to Release Alaska’s Geothermal Energy Potential

2. Businesses ink deal with Israeli incubator

3. Tigo Energy Closes $10 Million Round

Investments
4. Check Point buys Liquid Machines

5. Tel Aviv Stock Exchange Plans New Index For High-Tech Startups CEO

6. Steinitz unveils broad plan to help Israeli high-tech

Information Technology
7. Trusteer’s week of wins

8. Motion-activated controls come to Android

Miscellaneous
9. New center for Internet study at Haifa U

10. The Next Big Things

11. Microsoft’s Hopes Lay in Israel (h/t Joel Katz)

Trusteer-LogoIt’s been a busy month for Trusteer. The company, which offers secure browsing services, was named a Red Herring Europe 100 winner last week and Amit Klein was named CTO of the Year by InfoWorld Magazine recently.

The criteria for the Red Herring award included financial performance, technology innovation and execution of strategy. According to the company, its solutions are used by more than 60 leading financial organizations in North America and Europe and by more than 6.8 million of their customers.

Regarding innovation, Amit Klein was recently honored by InfoWorld for his “discoveries of new attack techniques and for his leadership in improving the security of online banking and commerce.”

Under Klein’s leadership,

“Trusteer recently launched `Flashlight` a new remote fraud investigation and mitigation service which identifies the attack source on a customer’s machine, gathers samples, and can reverse engineer the mechanism used by the malware to commit fraud. Findings enable banks and other organizations to prevent future losses, block subsequent attacks, and takedown command/control servers.”

Trusteer CEO Mickey Boodaei has been very outspoken in recent weeks about allegations that Google is planning to drop the Microsoft operating system for security reasons. Boodaei has stressed that other companies shouldn’t follow since going to other browsers doesn’t solve the problem and could actually cause more problems on less targeted machines.

Trusteer is one of eight Israeli companies named Red Herring 100 winners this year.

Israel’s TaKaDu and SolarEdge have developed solutions in the water and solar fields that make current technologies more efficient.

Israel’s TaKaDu and SolarEdge have been named Red Herring Europe 100 winners for 2010. The two cleantech companies are among eight Israeli startups to have made the list which considered financial performance, technology innovation and execution of strategy and other criteria.

Here’s a closer look at both companies:
continue reading…

tech-headlines

During the week of May 30, 2010, Israel’s business ties with Turkey and China were explored and analyzed. Trusteer‘s Amit Klein was named CTO of the Year and SimilarGroup raised $1 million. For these stories and more see this week’s headlines below.

Cleantech
1. Investigating the Business and Cultural Ties that Bind Israel to China

2. New Solar Window Technology Generates 4 Times the Current

3. SolarEdge Disrupts Solar Tech

Investment and Economy
4. SimilarWeb Changes Name To SimilarGroup, Raises More Funding

5. ‘Commerce is stronger than politics’

6. Major reduction in Chief Scientist’s Office budget

Information Technology
7. Trusteer’s Amit Klein Named CTO of the Year by InfoWorld Magazine

8. Software Helps Banks Track Terror Funding (Actimize)

9. Too tired to tell if you’re stressed? Ask the computer

10. NDS looks to China

Miscellaneous
11. What’s Next for the Start-up Nation?

12. Palestinian Development Investment Forum Yields $655 Million

SolarEdge-PV-Optimization

Disruptor: In the past week SolarEdge has announced partnerships to distribute its technology across Australia and Europe and has been named a Red Herring 100 Winner.

Known for its high costs and lagging efficiency, the solar energy field has been one to watch for many but one to take advantage of for very few. New innovations and incentives in the field however, reported on CNET, offer promise for many solar companies looking to establish themselves. One company that seems to have had little difficulty establishing itself is SolarEdge, a solar power harvesting solution provider based in Israel.
continue reading…

Over the past few years there’s been significant increase in trade, investments and R&D partnerships between Israel and China. Except for during the recession, trade has increased steadily and is expected to grow even more as a result of the Israel pavilion at the Shanghai Expo and new initiatives among business organizations in both countries.

NDS-China-TradeRecent heightened business activity between the two include a plan from NDS, a digital pay-TV solution provider, to “augment its investment in the China market”; an R&D cooperation agreement that supports collaboration between Israeli and Chinese manufacturers; and an investment in a Chinese water company by Israel’s Infinity I-China investment fund.

According to Media Mughals, NDS‘s move comes after it,

“Identified a key growth opportunity through partnerships with Chinese companies in the consumer electronics space, semiconductors, systems integration, and digital-TV applications markets… According to Media Partners Asia, China is the largest market worldwide with over 66 million digital pay-TV subscribers. By 2014 this is predicted to reach 198 million subscribers. In parallel, cable TV revenues will increase from $9 billion in 2009 to $17 billion in 2014.”

NDS is tripling its investments to more fully immerse itself in all aspects of its business in China and is relocating part of its R&D resources from India and Israel there so that it can hire more locals as part of the efforts.