COVID-19, also known as Coronavirus, is affecting everyone’s lives all over the world these days and nobody knows when it end. While many businesses, especially in Israel, shut down and lead to unemployment of millions, there are some companies that can make the most out of this crisis. So, whether you’re in a medical team, need to boost your business, or you’re simply bored in quarantine, we’ve gathered a list of 25 Israeli startups to help you through the days of Coronavirus.
Medical
Tyto, already operating in Israel with Clalit Health Services, is a device that lets your physician examine you or your child remotely and test for fever, cold, sore throat, headaches, stomach aches, and more. Tyto’s device saves you unnecessary trips to the doctor, especially these days, and protects both patients and caregivers from the spread of Coronavirus.
K, operating in Israel with Maccabi Health Services, is a personal health assistant that users can use to diagnose their illness based on crowdsourcing from millions of patients. A chatbot will ask and guide you through your medical condition and suggest a treatment, or tell you if you should really leave the house and see a doctor. Today, K helps fight the Coronavirus, and they’re offering free 14 days of access to texting with a doctor, a symptom map, risk assessment, and more.
Healthy.io turns your smartphone camera into a medical device. With just a dipstick and a smartphone app, Healthy.io uses computer vision to test urine samples and indicate a range of infections, chronic illnesses, and pregnancy-related complications. No need to run to the doctor. A breakthrough technology, and especially relevant during this time.
Sight Diagnostics, founded in 2010, is the maker of OLO; the first complete blood count device for point-of-care. Combining AI, machine vision, OLO analyzes blood samples on the spot, inside the doctor’s office, instead of waiting days for lab results. The compact device is currently being used in Sheba Medical Center to test the blood samples of positive Coronavirus patients in a quarantined lab.
Datos Health is one of these startups that was totally made for times of global pandemics such as Coronavirus. Datos is a fully automated remote care platform designed to directly connect patients with medical sources of care. Datos Health makes it possible to safely monitor, detect, analyze, and predict changes in patients’ conditions – enabling care teams to communicate and take action in real-time. Datos’ platform is currently being used in Sheba Medical Center as well to help doctors monitor Coronavirus patients remotely, freeing up time to take care of more patients in need of immediate care.
Another startup useful for doctors and hospitals under pressure is CLEW who developed TeleICU, an AI platform for ICUs, analyzing every patient and predicting who’s in critical condition that requires the doctor’s immediate attention. CLEW is saving lives by helping doctors manage time and make critical choices.
What if you could test for Coronavirus, or any other disease, by using your voice? That’s what Vocalis is doing. They started as a regular healthcare startup that uses voice-based analysis to test for health conditions and illnesses, but the outbreak of the novel Coronavirus made their product even more important. In the future, once the research is over, even your smartphone could tell if you’re positive for the virus. Would you like to help the research and donate your voice sample? Click here!
Temi is a personal assistant robot (and a pretty amazing one- we have it in our office) that uses video and audio to complete different tasks. It wasn’t used for medical purposes until the outbreak of Coronavirus, which has opened a whole new market. Now, a fleet of Temi robots is sent to medical centers to help doctors communicate and examine patients remotely, without the risk of getting infected. They even raised $15 million last month to develop it further. We hope they’ve built enough robots.
Well, it has been proven that the best weapon against the mighty Coronavirus is soap. Yet, while almost everyone is washing their hands, most of us are not doing it right, and well, you know where that has led us. Soapy offers the first-ever AI-enhanced, IoT-connected, eco-friendly hygiene microstation, helping consumers to wash hands effectively according to standards set by the World Health Organization. It’s built for businesses, like restaurants, to make sure everyone washes their hands properly: 20 seconds with the right amount of soap, water, and water temperature.
Keep the Business Going
I don’t think I need to introduce you to Monday, an Israeli Unicorn and one of the most popular and loved collaboration platforms. Monday helps teams work together- better, whether you’re working in the office or from the comfort of your home.
[Image: Monday.com]
The pandemic made millions of people lose their jobs, and financially hit almost every sector. However, the tech sector is still surviving (well, some companies) because they can allow themselves to work remotely. So, for those of you companies still working and hiring, meet MyInterview; it’s a remote video interview combined with predictive analysis to process the candidate. It can’t tell if they’re Coronavirus positive, but it can tell if they’re right for the job.
Not keen on video interviews? You can try Spetz’s AI Bot that automatically chats with candidates, handling the pre-screening for you. Spetz used the pandemic to raise $750k earlier this month, because these kinds of products are what we need right now.
Another Israeli startup that “gained” from the global crisis, and raised $14 million to help the situation, is Axis Security. It’s a system for “private application access without network complexity”. Basically, it helps companies connect their employees to private applications securely and easily, even if they’re working from home. No need for a VPN or any network settings adjustments.
Zoom is the “winner” of this epidemic, but Zoom isn’t an Israeli company, so we have here their competitors: Vonage. Vonage (NASDAQ: VG) is a telecommunications company developing solutions for high-quality video, audio, and text for business communications. Oh, and there’s an app for that, of course.
Keep the business going with TechSee’s intelligent visual assistance, and help your customers and technicians, remotely. TechSee is developing a visual customer engagement platform to help customer support teams guide users over the phone using AR, AI, and their mobile phone’s camera.
COVID-19 is the time for eCommerce to shine, and you can see the massive number of orders from grocery stores or other online stores who can barely handle the pressure (well, at least here in Israel). BringgNOW (offered for free) is the last-mile delivery solution for Small-Medium Businesses to help them launch a delivery operation immediately, or to improve their existing one.
Quarantine Time
In regular times, Bosco is an app that lets parents monitor their kids’ activity online, in social networks, or wherever they go- using GPS, text and voice analysis, and more technology measures- to keep children safe. Today, following the government’s instructions, Bosco has developed new features to fit these new circumstances such as a 100-meter radius map, an alert if your child was near a Coronavirus positive case, and more. [Full disclosure: Bosco is one of GKI Group’s portfolio companies]
[Image: Bosco’s Facebook page]
Can’t keep your kids away from the screen during the quarantine? Well, at least make the most of it. TinyTap is an educational games marketplace for kids, made by teachers worldwide, and offers over 150,000 lessons built like games. These games can teach your kids about math, languages, nature, and even about the Coronavirus.
Stuck with your kids, or yourself, at home? Why won’t you learn to play an instrument? JoyTunes is the company behind the leading apps Simply Piano and Piano Maestro, to teach everyone, really- everyone, how to play the piano. Now, you just need a piano. (:
This epidemic is not quite dangerous for younger people, statistically, but it puts you in a higher risk if you’re over 60, and that’s where the problem is. Many people won’t see their parents or grandparents these days in order to keep them safe from Coronavirus, but loneliness has been a common symptom for older people long before the outbreak. Intuition Robotics is the company behind ElliQ, a robot made to help seniors feel less lonely. With ElliQ, they can easily connect with family and friends using video or audio, share photos, receive curated news and reminders, and play cognitive games to help their memory. Stay connected!
Can’t get your hands on a unit of ElliQ? Try Uniper Care: A smart TV platform, tailored for older adults’ needs. Uniper Care developed an end-to-end solution turning any member’s TV into an interactive personal companion. Using both a web camera and a TVBox, the user can join a community without leaving his/her house, with live sessions and group activities such as workout or meditation. But most importantly – Uniper Care helps grandparents stay connected with their family members with a cross-platform system.
[Click here to view more Israeli startups for seniors!]
Jolt is helping everyone enrich their knowledge- for business or fun- and learn from the world’s top experts from leading companies in the fields of management & leadership, marketing, personal development, product, data, and finance. Most of the time, the classes take place in meeting rooms on their campuses, but since the “teachers” are remote – it was not a problem to move the entire operation online and let the users go on with their studying.
About two-three years ago, Life on Air- the company behind Meerkat- released Houseparty, a fun group video chat app that became hugely popular among millennials. In June 2019, the company was acquired by Epic Games (developer of Fortnite), a deal that turned out to pay off during COVID-19 times. Houseparty, just like Zoom, became popular even more so now than before, because people can’t meet one another in person. Unlike Zoom, which is meant for work purposes, Houseparty is more fun, and has social games and other cool features.
[Image: Houseparty]
Now, take Houseparty, combine it with online poker games, and you’ll get Pokerface- a new mobile game developed by an Israeli startup called Comunix. The company’s main goal is to develop video, audio, and chat technologies for gaming companies, and they demonstrate it well with Pokerface. Finally, you can play online poker and actually see your friends’ face and reactions in real time – just like real poker. Well, unless they wear an N95 mask.
Feeling lazy? Need to work out, but can’t head over to the gym, let alone more than 100 meters outside your house? Meet Kemtai, probably the newest startup on our list, founded at the end of 2019 to provide a solution for fitness at home. The app, currently in Beta, uses video and AI to analyze your every move, and correct you if you’re doing it wrong, just like a personal trainer. So, stop being lazy and sign up for the Beta version.
This is only a partial list of the Israeli startups and companies that could help you through the these days. There’s still much work going on, not to mention all the biotech companies in Israel making an effort to find a cure or vaccine for COVID-19, or companies like Mobileye and MyHeritage that use their connections and funds to help out the situation. It’s great to see how this huge, international crisis is uniting everyone to fight one thing, together. No social distancing should stop us.
