Tuesday Tech Update —Israel America Tech List — July 17th 2018
It’s the 9 days of Av here where, in the Jewish calendar, we commemorate the destruction of the temple. Seems like as good a time as any for a Tuesday Tech Update including a handheld ultrasound for breast cancer detection, Polish tech cooperation despite Holocaust bill beef, and Israel to put a man(-less drone) on the moon.
But first, Sacha Baron Cohen aka Ali G aka Borat aka Bruno is out with a new show. He’s up to the same antics and using extremely elaborate disguises including Colonel Erran Morad, a satirical Israeli counter-terrorism expert going around Capitol Hill to push his program of arming toddlers. It is beyond hilarious and terrifying. I can’t wait for more episodes. Watch a First Look of Erran Morad below. EXTREMELY worth your time.
Saw this on social media? Sign up for the email list.
At any given time, there are tons of delegations from different governments, industries, and companies coming to Israel to see the “innovation miracle”. They come to learn how Israel cultivates startups and to also get access to these startups, R&D, and tech talent. In my experience in the water sector, it seemed there’s a different delegation several times per week that one organization or another in Israel is trying to get you to meet with and show off your startup wares. It felt like about 50% of these were from China. Especially in the water sector, where Israel has a good reputation, there’s a ton of visitors to see how Israel “made the desert bloom”, and I’ve met the Governors of both Wisconsin and Texas on such delegations. My personal experience is that a lot of these delegations are a waste of time and are nothing more than a photo-op, as very little business actually gets done at these things, and one can quickly get lost in doing these instead of actually building a business, similar to those who feel they need to attend every quasi-relevant industry conference. Then again, you never know what might happen, but definitely be wary of your time at these ‘initiatives’. Often enough, you as the startup are the product that the ‘initiative’ is selling.
Coming soon will be two delegations from Illinois and the $1.2 billion Discovery Partners Institute which is looking to establish partnerships and collaboration with many of the universities here in Israel to help establish the Midwest as a major tech R&D center. The delegations are on the heels of a visit by Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner in November where several MOUs (memorandum of understanding) were signed. Source
Across the pond in Eastern Europe, aka the Midwest of the East, was a visit last week from 100 Polish business people as part of an initiative from the newly created Polish technology minister, Jadwiga Emilewicz. Her mission is to persuade Israelis to set up R&D centers in Poland, leveraging the cheaper high-tech labor and a number of tax incentives the Polish government is offering. She also wants Polish entrepreneurs to learn from Israel’s globally-focused mindset to help business people sell beyond the 32 million poles. Poland has a lot of good developers and I think we will start to see more and more companies outsourcing development to places like Poland and Ukraine. The Polish-Israel Startup foundation seems to also be a good initiative working to help build some of these bridges. All of this is happening with the backdrop of the Polish holocaust law. Won’t get into it here, but the fact that technology cooperation persists despite this spat between the two countries is a true testament to the power of economic cooperation. Source
Exciting Technology Happenings
Early breast cancer detection may soon become easier because of a new handheld ultrasound device that, when developed, will allow women to monitor their breasts at home. A former biomedical scientist at NASA, Yehudit Abrams, an ultra-Orthodox Jew now living in Jerusalem, is the brains behind the product. Source
On February 13, 2019, an Israeli-built unmanned spacecraft is expected to land on the moon, having blasted off from Earth two months earlier, project managers said at a news conference Tuesday. If all goes well, the SpaceIL spider-like craft will give Israel entry into the exclusive club of just three nations that have so far achieved a controlled landing on the moon’s surface. Source
Job of the Week
See below for the news that Monday.com raised $50 million. I imagine quite a lot of that is going to hiring. There’s a ton of open positions on their career page and I’m sure that will grow substantially. So if you’re interested in the company, let me know! I know the head of HR ;)
Secret Tel Aviv, a Facebook group which has 200,000 members in it and is basically the primary message board for anyone and everyone in Tel Aviv — check it out, it has people selling couches, looking for spouses, and funny videos and commentary mixed between- is holding a career/education fair. It’s on July 20th. Definitely a great place to network and find a job or education program that could be a fit. Johnny Stark who founded and runs the group posted this list of all the open positions at the companies that are hiring.
If you have a job or other opportunity of some kind, let me know and I will happily include it in future emails!
Tech Deals
Next Insurance, an Israeli digital insurance startup focused on small businesses, raised $83 million. Redpoint Ventures led, and was joined by Nationwide Insurance, Munich Re, American Express Ventures, Ribbit Capital, TLV Ventures and Zeev Ventures. http://axios.link/xt0Y
Aurora Labs, an Israeli developer of predictive tools for automatically fixing in-car software, raised $8.4 million in Series A funding. Fraser McCombs Capital led, and was joined by return backer MizMaa Ventures. http://axios.link/wL30
Monday.com, an Israel-based provider of workplace collaboration tools, raised $50 million in Series C funding at a $500 million pre-money valuation, per TechCrunch. Stripes Group led, and was joined by return backers om Insight Venture Partners and Entrée Capital. http://axios.link/L21W
Israel cyber security company Radiflow has announced the closing of an $18 million financing round. The round was led by Singapore Technologies Engineering Ventures (ST Engineering). Radiflow’s existing investors, including Zohar Zisapel, also took part in the round. Globes
Israeli autotech company Arbe Robotics, which has developed a high-resolution radar sensor for autonomous vehicles, has closed a $10 million funding round. Globes
Tel Aviv-based retailing automation company Trigo Vision has announced a $7 million seed funding round by UK-Israel based Hetz Ventures and Vertex Ventures Israel. Trigo Vision’s platform combines a highly sophisticated, ceiling-based camera network with machine vision algorithms to identify and capture customers’ shopping items with exceptional levels of accuracy during their in-store journey, eliminating the need for a checkout process. Globes
PlantArcBio, which has developed a new approach for genetic improvement of plants, today announced a $3 million financing round and cooperation with the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In the framework of the trial, the university will test the effect of the genes discovered by the company on plants’ drought tolerance. Globes
Did someone forward this to you? Want to sign up to receive this email? Click here to subscribe.
