That’s not a bad number. In fact, a few years ago, it would have been considered a success, but in comparison to the billions raised and the birth of new Unicorns over the past few months, the difference is quite noticeable.  

Yet, we’re still happy to see companies that make it through the crisis with decent (and some might say reasonable) investment rounds. Here are some of them:

We’re used to seeing nine-digit investment rounds on the top of the list, but this time we’ll have to settle for “just” $64 million, which rightfully goes directly to one of our favorite startups – AI21 Labs, the creators of the life-saving (for content writers) Wordtune, and various of NLP tools for developers. Keep it going!

Just one million below, with $63 million, we have another startup that starts with A and ends with Labs: we’re talking about the vehicle software intelligence developer Aurora Labs. The startup’s technology enables automotive companies or silicon vendors to collect data from vehicles, understand the software and line-of-code, diagnose problems, and overall streamline the development process.  

July’s startup list is not so long, yet four companies with “Robotics” in their title are mentioned. At least one of them is building an actual robot.

ForSight Robotics, with $55 million, has developed ORYOM – the first hybrid intraocular robotic ophthalmic platform for performing safer eye surgeries. 

Diagnostic Robotics, Dr. Kira Radinsky’s new baby has raised $45 million for a powerful AI-based diagnostic system that helps healthcare providers save costs and improve with predictive analysis. 

Unlimited Robotics, which raised $8 million, is developing a multi-functional service robot called Gary that can perform any task you’d need at home or work. 

Wonder Robotics raised $4 million for the development of WonderLand, a solution that allows vertical take-off and landing drones to land safely and autonomously.  

Also worth mentioning are three gaming companies that have raised some funds this month with the help of investors, not loot boxes.

Edge Gaming is an interesting startup that turns gameplay moments into “playables.” Players can capture their gameplay and instantly turn it into a playable mini-game that can be shared and played by others. Edge Gaming raised $30 million this month. Nice play. 

UnCaged Studios, with $24 million, is pioneering the next generation of AAA, Play-First Web3 gaming, and has developed a game called Monkey League. It combines soccer, chess… and NFT. Is that the future of gaming? We’ll have to wait and see.

With $7 million, we have Gigantic- a gaming startup that we’ve mentioned in the past- for the development of Clawee, an app that enables players to operate an actual claw machine remotely and win the prize they just picked up. Well, if they managed to pick it up; you know how claw machines work.

As usual, here’s this month’s complete list of investment rounds and grants:

While one slow down doesn’t necessarily mean trouble, along with the Israeli and worldwide cutoffs, it certainly looks like the market will take some time to recover. We’ll have to wait and see what the next couple of months bring. 

The post Only less than $700 million in July 2022 [Infographic] appeared first on GKI Group.

In May, two new Unicorns were born: public transportation optimization startup Optibus and Banking-as-a-Service fintech startup Unit. Both surpassed the $1 billion valuations.
“Older” Unicorns grew bigger as well: Deel raised $50 million and doubled its valuation to $12 billion, and blockchain company StarkWare raised another $50 million that brought it to a valuation of $8 billion! 

The biggest round of investment this month goes to Israeli-American cybersecurity company Semperis, which raised $200 million to help enterprises recover quickly from attacks and data breaches. Next, with $120 million, we have Pyramid Analytics, for delivering data-driven business intelligence faster than ever before by providing access to any data.
Another surprising company at the high end of the list is Masterschool, which raised a $100 million seed funding round (!) to “build the largest network of career schools in the world”. 

The rest of the startups and numbers are in this infographic, as usual:

The post Crisis? What Crisis? Israeli startups grabbed more than $1.6 billion in May 2022 [Infographic] appeared first on GKI Group.

This February, 50 Israeli startups raised over $1.47 billion and three new Unicorns joined the club, which is still impressive but looks rather pale compared to previous months in 2021, surpassing the $2 and $3 billion mark. 

The first startup on our list, which happens to be one of the unicorns mentioned earlier, is the cybersecurity company for marketers, CHEQ. The startup, which announced its $150 million Series C funding, develops a Go-to-Market security platform that protects your data, analytics, and paid advertising campaigns from bots, fraudsters, and invalid users. 

The next Unicorn is Salt Security, infamous for one company event, but famous for their API security solution, which brought them a $140 million investment and a $1.4 billion valuation.
Using API Context Engine (ACE) Architecture, Salt Security can discover all your APIs, stop every API attack, and eliminate API vulnerabilities in development. Bonus: Count how many times the term API appears in this paragraph.

Dreaming about your next vacation? Meet Island, a new… oh, wait, we were told that Island is actually the (brilliant) name of a cybersecurity company, developing a browser for enterprises. Instead of reading this article at work in Chrome or Firefox as you’re probably doing right now, Island allows enterprises to create their own safe, private Chromium-based browser, which they can control and monitor. Island emerged from stealth, and announced almost $100 million in financing. 

The story of Cloudinary is out of the ordinary. Founded in 2012, Cloudinary announced its first round of investment in ten years, a $100 million secondary deal that brought the company up to a $2 billion valuation. From bootstrap to Unicorn. Cloudinary provides a solution for media optimization, which allows their customers to easily upload, edit, and publish images and videos on any device. 

Another video solution that raised $100 million this month tackles the need for content creation from another angle. WSC Sports automatically (or, automagically, as they claim) creates highlight videos for the satisfaction of every fan, and help sports organizations improve their engagement and monetization. 

Okay, let’s move over to companies that raised less than a 9-digit number, but still develop incredible, promising products. 

Gauzy is the world leader in smart glass technologies. Yes, that’s a thing. With the help of LCG® (light control glass) technologies, transparent materials can change from controlled levels of opaque to transparent on demand – for privacy matters, custom shading, energy control, and transparent displays. Earlier in February, Gauzy acquired French company Vision Systems and raised $60 million. 

Take a closer look at this one. Closer… Closer… Zoom in… Okay, now stop. Meet Scopio Labs, developers of a digital microscope that revolutionizes cell morphology and enables researchers and scientists to see things in a way that was never possible before. The company raised a $50 million C Round this month and reached a total of $84 million to date.  

Diamonds are a girl’s best friend, but what about lab-grown diamonds? Better ask Lusix that question. Founded by visionary entrepreneur and prolific inventor Benny Landa, Lusix’s diamonds are “fusing the beauty of nature with the power of science”. After perfecting the most scientifically advanced technology for growing the diamonds over the past 8 years, Lusix has now raised $45 million to help the company’s growth. And its diamonds.

Subsurface Mapping Platform Exodigo raised $29 million to help construction, mining, and utility companies discover what lies beneath the surface. The startup’s revolutionary non-intrusive subsurface imaging platform can detect buried objects such as gas pipelines, water sources, cables, minerals, and other natural or man-made obstacles that may hazard or delay construction projects. Looks like they’ve found a hidden treasure.  

Imagine turning on the TV in your hotel room in France, and your favorite movie starring Brad Pitt is on. He speaks in French, but unlike dubbing, this time he speaks French with his own voice. Meet Deepdub, a new startup aiming to “provide high-quality seamless localization of entertainment content using deep learning and AI algorithms”, which simply means automating the dubbing process, in every language, using the actor’s or actress’s voice. Another thing that sounds great in every language is the fact that Deepdub raised $20 million this month. 

If you’ve spent some time on the Israeli LinkedIn feed, there’s no way you could have missed the 22-year-old entrepreneur May Piamenta with her big smile, inspirational personality, and the refreshing energy she brings into her own startup, Vee. Vee is a volunteering platform that helps organizations and enterprises manage their employees’ volunteering opportunities and give back to the community. A whole platform built for doing good? We’re totally in, and so are the investors who gave the company $12 million funding.

Vanilla is the world’s most popular scent and taste, but, surprising or not, most of the vanilla you’ve ever tasted was synthetic. Natural vanilla is super-expensive and suffers from an irregular supply chain, but now, an Israeli Foodtech startup is trying to change that. Vanilla Vida is developing a new method for growing vanilla crops faster despite the weather, climate change, and other variables that affect its scarcity. Vanilla Vida currently focuses on the spice that gave the company its name. They raised $11.5 million to advance with development and, hopefully, to apply the same technology for different crops in the future.      

That’s it for now.

Also, spoiler alert, March already kicked off with a HUGE investment before we finished writing this article, so forget about the first paragraph – the Israeli ecosystem still lives.

The post Is the bubble about to burst? Israeli startups raised “only” $1.4 billion in February 2022 appeared first on GKI Group.

We’ve been pretty busy collecting and calculating the amount of money that flowed and has been invested in Israeli startups and got surprised every single time. We still haven’t processed all the data and we’ll try to publish our report later this month, but in the meantime, we can tell you that Israeli startups raised more than $27 billion in 2021. THAT’S A LOT.

That number also includes the last month of 2021, where 37 Israeli companies raised over $2.235 with some mega investments, new Unicorns, and new inventive companies on the rise- as usual.
We’ve got some of these companies covered for you:

On top of the list, with an incredible $400 million Series E investment, we have one of the leading industrial cybersecurity companies, Claroty. Their platform covers all areas such as industrial (OT), Enterprise IoT, and Healthcare (IoMT). To support the latter, the company used the current investment for the acquisition of the medical devices security startup Medigate for $300 million. Speaking of yearly summaries, we’ve mentioned Medigate in our 2020 report.

The next one is clearly a huge achievement and a record-breaking number.
Rehovot-based cultured meat company Future Meat raised a historic $347 million investment, the largest single fundraising for a cultivated meat company and probably one of the largest investments in the Foodtech sector in general. Future Meat is planning to take the funding to make cultivated meat more commercialized and affordable, and begin producing cultivated chicken as well.

Tipalti, the automated accounts payable platform, raised $270 million in December and skyrocketed to an $8.3 billion valuation. Tipalti’s platform, as their Hebrew name suggests, handles payments, procurements, and other financial operations, and reduces companies’ workload by 80%. Trusted by over 2,000 paying enterprises like Canva, Roblox, GoDaddy, and National Geographic, it’s no surprise that Tiplati had made it this far.

Let’s turn waste into treasure with the next company on our list. Cleantech startup UBQ Materials developed a technology that enables them to take unsorted trash, of every sort, and turn it into a plastic-like material called UBQ, “the most climate-positive thermoplastic on the market”. Looks like the company also knows how to turn inventive ideas into money, and raised $170 million this month to continue the development of its vision. Good luck! 

Time for a Unicorn – meet Noname Security, a proactive API security platform, that saves your code and software from using APIs with security vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, and design flaws. Noname made a name for itself this month after securing a $135 million investment that brought the company up to a $1 billion valuation. 

The First Digital Bank, now branded as One Zero, is the first new independent bank in Israel after 40 years and was founded by Mobileye’s Amnon Shashua. One Zero already has more than 60K customers on its waiting list (including me), hoping to see how this digital bank battles with the big ones. To support that move, the bank raised $120 million from a line of investors like Tencent and SBI. Good luck!

After listing out B2B cyber security startups for enterprises and industries, we skipped ahead a bit to tell you about new cybersecurity that aims to protect you, the end-user. Guardio is a lightweight extension designed to help you browse quickly and securely. Just add to it your browser, like Chrome, and it will block harmful sites, monitor data leaks, stop unwanted notifications, or remove malicious extensions. After being installed by more than one million users, Guardio raised $47 million. Cool!  

Too much time on the ground- let’s head over to space. HiSky is an Israeli company developing low-cost voice, data & IoT satellite communication solutions called Smartellite to make satellite communication accessible and affordable, even in the most remote places on earth. HiSky raised $30 million in Series A this December. 

Remember Powermat, one of the pioneers in wireless charging products? Well, it turns out that the company is still active, and totally rocking it, as you can find its technology in more than 800 million smartphones, 40 million embedded accessories, and 8 million cars worldwide. The company charged its batteries with a $25 million investment this month to scale wireless charging tech and enable it for robotic solutions, among its variety of uses.   

The farmers’ arch-nemeses are, apparently, weeds, as they threaten crop production worldwide. Up until now, the farmers had to spray herbicides indiscriminately across the field, which contaminates the soil and water, exposes people to health issues, and costs a lot of money for the farmers. Greeneye Technology developed an AI and deep learning solution that turns every sprayer into a smart machine, to reduce the use of these chemicals and stop the wasteful and harmful spraying. The company raised $22 million this month. Farmers, your sprayers have been answered (excuse the pun). 

The gamer in you might feel excited about this one: Edge Gaming lets you generate and share real mini-games (called Playables) from your gaming highlights that your fans and anyone else can play and compete in. While we’re not entirely sure how this cool idea might work, it seems like the people of Playtika who invested $10 million in the startup – really saw its potential. GAME ON! (and on, and on…)  

Can you predict the next biggest hit series on Netflix or the huge blockbuster that’ll draw anyone back to cinemas like “Spiderman: No Way Home” did? You probably can’t, and so are the studios that use a lot of guesswork (or huge marketing campaigns) rather than algorithms. Israeli startup Vault AI, which raised $8 million this month, uses artificial intelligence to predict customer insights and responses and helps the networks or producers realize who their audience is, how to approach them, and how big the show or movie is gonna be.

Are we humans, or are we influencers? Better ask Israeli startup Humanz that question. Founded by Israeli military intelligence alumni from Unit 8200, who decided to use their knowledge in algorithms for marketing rather than cybersecurity, Humanz is a smart influencers marketing platform that helps brands choose the perfect influencers and content creators for the job and product that needs some boosting. Working with companies like Unilever, Adidas, ZARA, and McDonald’s, no wonder the company raised $8m this month. 

WAKE UP! This is our last company for 2021, with a $4 million investment. Meet Ansā, formerly known as Griin, a coffee machine that roasts beans from the inside out, making it a zero-pollution solution for coffee lovers at home or in the office. So, if you’re into quality coffee and the environment, this might be the product you’ve always needed. 

Well, what else is there to say? It’s hard to believe that 2022 will be as grand as 2021, but life is full of surprises and, apparently,  some spare money to invest in Israeli companies.
See you soon,
Startup Israel Community. 

The post Grand Finale: 37 Israeli startups raised over $2.2 billion in December 2021 [Infographic] appeared first on GKI Group.

The Israeli startup ecosystem has done it again. We didn’t think it would happen again so fast after passing the $3b mark and breaking a record in October, but it did – the following month.
This November, 70 Israeli startups raised more than $3.66 billion, with the birth of four new Unicorns and seven mega-deals that account for a third of the total amount.

In a list of 70 startups and the longest largest that we made, we couldn’t cover everything, but we picked some of the most interesting and noteworthy deals and companies. 

On top of the list, we have one of the most successful startups in Israel, the gaming company MoonActive. With expected revenues of more than $1.5 billion in 2021, mainly thanks to their super-popular game Coin Master, no wonder that the company’s latest $300 million round brought its valuation to $5 billion! This Secondary investment, led by Insight Partners, is also great news for some of their 1,300 employees who probably became “Coin Masters” themselves after their stock options were acquired. 

The agentless assets security company Armis, acquired by Insight Partners in January 2020, continues its money-raising efforts. After getting a $125 million investment earlier this year, Armis added another $300 million in private equity and brought the company’s valuation to $3.4 billion. The company’s platform provides simple, comprehensive device visibility & security using a vast knowledge base of over 1 billion devices and their behaviors. 

Moving over to the business management platform HoneyBook, which hauled a $250 million investment that doubled the company’s valuation to $2.4 billion – only six months after its $155 million D Round. HoneyBook is an all-in-one platform that allows small businesses and freelancers to manage projects, book clients, send invoices, and get paid. Just like HoneyBook.

The next one is a company that needs no introduction if you’ve been reading this blog regularly – Verbit. Just like HoneyBook, Verbit, the AI-based transcription and captioning service, announced its $250 million Series E only six months after their last round of $157 million Series D and doubled its valuation to $2 billion. Looks like a trend. 

Ready to save the world? Meet Immunai, the US and Tel-Aviv-based company is developing a platform that maps the immune system using single-cell biology and AI to accelerate the development of novel immune medicines. Immunai raised $215 million this month to continue with research and development and to hire more PhDs and MDs who’ll be working together to achieve medical breakthroughs. Good luck!  

If you’ve been watching the new season of the Israeli satirical comedy show Eretz Nehederet, you probably saw their sketches about the startup “Webos” that mocks and criticizes the Israeli tech scene and the investment frenzy. What you probably didn’t know is that these scenes were filmed at the offices of Lusha, which announced a $205 million Series B the same day the show aired and became a Unicorn. Yes, Ironic, we know.  However, unlike “Webos,” Lusha has an actual product – a sales intelligence platform for B2B sales, helping 280K companies get contact and company details to generate leads and score their next sale.

Speaking of the Unicorn Club, we have a new member! OpenWeb, formerly known as Spot.IM, raised $150 million to bring the power back to publishers by enabling them to create engaged and safer communities with moderated content and less online toxicity. The OpenWebOS (not to be confused with Webos from the previous paragraph) has 100M+ monthly active users and is trusted by top publishers like AOL, TechCrunch, New York Post, Fox News, who see a growth in the time users spend on their site.     

Beep beep! Make way to AutoBrains. The company developed Cartex, a self-learning AI technology for assisted and autonomous driving that is safer, more efficient, consumes 10x less energy, and is adaptive to its surroundings in real-time. Autobrains raised $101 million this month.  

The newest Unicorn, announced only yesterday, is Fundbox, a startup that helps small businesses grow by offering loans, lines of credit, and other financial products. Fundbox is also growing, with the help of a $100 million Series D that brings the company to a $1.1 billion valuation.  

Gaming startup Overwolf raised $75 million to enrich the gaming community. Overwolf built a platform for creating in-game apps and mods for popular games like League of Legends, World of Warcraft, Fortnite and sharing or selling them in the company’s Appstore. Overwolf has about 90,000 creators and 20 million monthly active users.   

We know you probably didn’t expect to meet a new Unicorn below the mega-deals, but we have a new one. Starkware is a crypto startup that builds an Ethereum scaling solution called StarkNet, bringing scalability, security, and privacy to blockchains. The company raised $50 million this month and more than $160 million in total, skyrocketing its valuation to $2 billion.  

As a customer, it’s nice to have the law by your side against fraud and theft. Still, unfortunately, many customers use this to manipulate retailers with false chargebacks and reclaim their money back from the credit card company. Over 80% of charges are illegitimate! Justt raised $50 million this month, and $70m since it was founded, to fight fraudulent chargebacks with AI and save online sellers an estimated $125 billion lost revenue.   

It’s been a while, but finally, there’s a drone startup on the list! This time we’re talking about Flytrex, a drone delivery service that operates in the US and works with retailers and restaurants like Walmart and Chili’s to enable a quick sky-high 5-minute delivery. Flytrex is aiming high and raised $40 million this month to continue developing and expanding to other locations than North Carolina, where the company currently operates. 

Meet Bit, a new platform for component-driven development, creating microservices to help front-end developers build websites, bit by bit. Used by more than 200,000 developers, Bit grabbed $25 million in a Series B round. 

Two companies that aim to help you write better are aligned on top of each other. With $21 million, we have Anyword, a copywriting generator powered by AI to create optimized copy for ads, landing pages, emails, and more.

A bit under, with $20 million, we have Amnon Shashua’s AI21 Labs, a company with the mission to make the best Natural Language Processing tools to help both machines and people. The company created one of our favorite tools called Wordtune, which assists you in rewriting your sentences in English in a better way – even when you write them in Hebrew. 

Got milk? Good, and what about animal-free milk? Imagindairy is a new Israeli food-tech startup developing animal-free dairy proteins for real milk, with no cows involved. The startup raised a $13 million seed round to integrate deep tech with system biology and develop a commercial and viable animal-free protein-based dairy product. It’s going to be Imagin-wait for it-dairy.    

Any product developers in the crowd? Good! Allow us to introduce you to Craft.io, an end-to-end product management platform. Craft.io covers anything you need to become a better product team, from helping you understand your customers or making it easier to collaborate with development teams. The startup raised $8 million this month with plans for expansion and adding some machine learning tools to their platform.

Just like always, here’s the infographic for you. Click to download or view it in full size. 

We can’t wait for this year to end. Think we’re going to have a pretty interesting year summary.

The post Oops… They did it again! These 70 Israeli startups broke a new record and raised more than $3.6 billion in November. appeared first on GKI Group.

This year’s delegation consists of 18 companies, including our very own robotic bartender Cecilia.ai, who’ll be making delicious cocktails for thousands of guests in a blink of an eye. It’s a benefit for us as well as for the rest of the Israeli startups. We’ll get the opportunity to introduce Cecilia and her autonomous cocktail-making and conversational AI abilities to the world, the visitors of CES will be drawn to get their free drinks, and the other startups in the booth will enjoy a flux of new visitors who just happened to “accidentally” stumble upon the place- only to be amazed by various life-changing Israeli innovations along the way. That’s Israel for ya – always working together.

We know that time is precious, so to make your visit to the Israeli Pavilion as profound as possible, we’ve made you a list of 8 Israeli Startups to Watch at CES 2022.
So, when you reach Booth No. 61708 at Eureka Park, say hi to Cecilia, grab your complimentary cocktail, and start your journey through the Israeli inventions that are bound to change the world.

Bzigo – Mosquito Tracker

No more buzzing. No more itching. Bzigo is the first-ever device that actively detects and locates mosquitos. Once a mosquito is detected in your room, an alert is sent to your smartphone with the exact location of the mosquito. What happens next with that mosquito is up to your kindness. A must-visit (unless you’re a mosquito).
More info: Startup in Round A. Looking for an investment. 

[Source: Bzigo]

Chakratec – Sustainable Charging

Chakratec is a leading provider of a patent-pending flywheel energy storage technology on a mission to create the world’s most sustainable charging solution for EVs (Electric Vehicles). The company’s technology enables unlimited high-power charge and discharge cycles and is based on a non-chemical flywheel, which makes its solution eco-friendly and sustainable. We’re out of energy explaining how their technology works, so just visit their booth and let them charge you up with information.
More info: Public (TASE: CKRT). 

CityTransformer – Foldable Electric Vehicle 

Buckle up, people, because CityTransformer is about to take you on a ride on the world’s first all-electric mobility solution built for big cities. This new vehicle- which looks like the lovechild of a car and motorcycle- was designed to take minimal space for parking, beating traffic in cities with the ability to switch modes and “fold” from performance mode (1,400mm width) to city mode (1,000mm width).  Watch out, Megatron.
More info: Raised $10m in Round A. Looking for investors.

Deeyook – Ultra Precise Location Technology

Deeyook (‘precision, accuracy’ in Hebrew) offers Precise Location as a Service through its patented wire-based firmware solution installed in any Wifi/4G/5G radio access technology, providing the ultra-precise location (~10 cm) of persons or vehicles both indoors and outdoors. Deeyook’s solution is self-learning, easy to install, low on power consumption, and super fast.
Sounds interesting? You know where to find them.
More info: Raised $5m in A Round. Looking for an investment. 

Indoor Robotics – Drone for Indoor Spaces

The company behind Tando; a fully autonomous drone for security, inspection, and maintenance that can fly indoors. Tando provides complete visual and thermal coverage, uses AI to improve decision making and prevent false alarms, is capable of data collection and analysis tasks, and reduces costs. Can’t wait to see it flying around at CES.
More info: Round A. Looking for an investment.  

iRomaScents – Scented Entertainment

Can you believe that we’re almost in 2022, and you still can’t smell movies or video games? Well, one of the Israeli startups to watch at CES 2022 is aiming to change that.
iRomaScents adds scents to movies, videos, games, and commercials at home or at the cinema to enhance the user experience and change the effectiveness of advertising.
The company also operates in the B2C market, offering consumers to choose their preferred fragrance at home and order it online. Smells interesting.
More info: Not seeking for an investment at the moment.

Oorym – Making Augmented Reality a Reality

Remember Google Glass? A new Israeli startup is trying to make that happen, again, but successfully this time. Oorym is developing and fabricating the next generation of near-to-eye displays, with higher quality, superb performance, and low manufacturing costs that will change the way people experience AR. Oorym was founded in 2016 by Dr. Yaakov Amitai, the inventor of the waveguide and the Planaric-substrates technologies used in most of the AR HMD systems in the world. If there’s a person who can turn augmented reality into a reality, he’s the guy.
More info: Looking to raise $10m.  

Silentium – Silence in a Chip

Shhh! Time to meet the last startup on our list. Silentium is leading the way in Automotive Active Acoustic & Sound Control, with the development of a unique Action Noise Control technology called Quiet Bubble. QB blocks unwanted sounds, no matter what the sources are, without the need for headphones. Their product can be used at home, in cars, in industries, and in public transportation. Ironically, we believe Silentium’s technology will make a lot of noise at CES.
More info: Raised $85 million in total. Looking to raise another $50m.   

Being on top of innovation, Israeli startups have always liked to demonstrate and show off their groundbreaking technologies to the rest of the world. CES was always the best platform to do so. So, although we mentioned only 8 Israeli startups to watch at CES 2022 (or 9, if you include our Cecilia), we expect many other Israeli companies to exhibit at the conference.
Now all they need is a cocktail giveaway made by a robot and support by the Israel Export Institute and the Ministry of Economy and Industry, which we couldn’t have done without them. 

Still haven’t found that one special company that you’re looking for?
Here are the rest of the startups that’ll exhibit at the Israeli Pavilion: 

Biobeat – a next-generation AI remote patient monitoring system 

Cybellum –  Integrated cybersecurity solutions for connected device manufacturers

DriveU.auto – Superior connectivity platform for autonomous vehicle teleoperation

Imagry – Building the world’s first mapless autonomous driving platform

MoodoAIR – A revolutionary app-controlled 2 in 1 air purification and fragrance diffusion system

Newt – Professional personalized digital nutrition support, accessible anywhere and anytime

Resight – An easy system for adding an AR layer to physical locations

TiKBAG – Adding IoT to your kids’ school bags, to track their bag weight and schedule. 

VBox – An alternative for live TV streaming that combines live local TV channels with online streaming services

Come and meet Cecilia.ai and other exciting 17 Israeli companies at the Israeli Pavilion. Book a meeting today. 

CES 2022 | Las Vegas, NV

January 5-8 | Venetian Expo

Eureka Park | Hall G

Booth No. 61708

The post 8 Israeli Startups to Watch at CES 2022 appeared first on GKI Group.

So, what happened?

First of all, we had five mega-rounds with over $250 million:
The HR and payroll startup Deel, based in Israel and San Francisco, raised $425 million at a $5.5b valuation, and it took it only about a year to get to this value.
Celsius is a crypto lending platform based in Israel and London, that raised $400 million.
Orca Security extended its Series C funding from $210m (raised this March) to $550m, which means an additional $340m that flowed into the promising cloud security startup.
TripActions, an Israeli founded company based in Palo Alto, raised $275 million at a crazy $7.25 billion valuation after pivoting from travel planning to expense planning as well.
And… a recurring guest this year, cloud security startup Wiz, with a new $250 million investment that skyrocketed the company value to $6 billion, only a year after it was founded.

In addition to these companies, four others just became unicorns.
Immunai, a promising startup that aims to map the immune system, is now immuned from shutting down anytime soon with a $215 million investment and a Unicorn status.
Micro-fulfillment robotics company Fabric raised $200 million on the same day that Augury, machine health diagnostics company, raised $180 million and became one of the first Industry 4.0 unicorns.
Also, say hi to Hibob, the HRtech firm which grabbed $150 million.

The rest of the numbers, down here:

The post A NEW RECORD! Israeli startups raised over $3.4 billion in October 2021! appeared first on GKI Group.

Half of the total amount flowed directly into the hands of two startups: Rapyd, probably the biggest Fintech startup in Israel that raised $300 million, is on its way to become a Decacorn with $8.75 billion valuations – making it the highest valued startup in Israel.

The second one, OwnBackup, the startup aiming to save your company from a total data disaster, raised $240 million. That E Round comes only seven months following their previous round and brings the company’s value to $3.35 billion.  

The rising trend of this month is undoubtedly real estate. Proptech and Construction Tech startups raised more than $140 million this month. On top of the list is the Israeli-founded US company Reali, which raised $250 million: $75m in equity, $25m in venture debt, and $150m of warehouse financing. Reali is a one-stop shop for home sellers and buyers with smart solutions for financing that saves their customers an average of $16k. 

But let’s head on to the Israeli-based startups:

Buildots is a new innovative startup trying to change the world of construction. Combining AI, and a wearable 360-degree camera, Buildots analyzes the construction site in real-time and compares it with the original design to alert of any gaps and inefficiencies. This wonderful, time and money-saving solution, raised $30 million this month. 

On the Proptech side, we have a $25 million investment in Localize, also known as Madlan in Israel. The startup, founded in 2012, is a real estate platform helping buyers, sellers, or investors get insights on any property, street, or neighborhood based on billions of data points.   

Let’s dig a little deeper, and introduce you to 4M Analytics. This construction startup, which raised $11 million this month, is accurately mapping the subsurface infrastructure like water pipelines, telecommunications, power lines, and more to provide contractors and consultants with all the data needed before they start digging.  

Renovai is a new interior design AI assistant that helps customers design their dream home and fill it with items based on their requirements and taste. The startup was renovated with a $3.7 million investment. 

Lendlord raised $2 million for their portfolio management platform for landlords and real estate investors. The platform, also available as an app, helps them manage, track, and optimize their property investments.  

And the last one in this sector is Okibo, developing smart robotics for construction sites. Their first robot was designed for plastering walls with stucco, concrete, insulation, etc., and all the other finishes. The company raised an undisclosed amount. Fine, keep your secrets.

Our list is still under construction (get it?)… Here are several other Israeli startups that got our attention.

Antidote Health is a new Israeli healthcare startup trying to solve one of the major ills of the U.S. Healthcare System: its affordability. Antidote provides premium care to patients and connects them to doctors through a telehealth platform, 24/7, at a price that anyone without health insurance can afford. Antidote raised $12 million this month, on their journey to impact millions of people. Amazing! 

In times like these, especially after Covid-19 hit the world and made people insulate inside their homes, it’s important to have a sympathetic ear; someone close that you can talk to, and that understands you. The new startup Circles was founded to solve just that and gather a group of people who are going through similar challenges in life in an online support group led by professionals. A cure for the soul. Circles got their financial support with a seed round consisting of many circles – $8,000,000. 

Eloops, a startup we once interviewed for Startup Israel Community, is developing an employee engagement platform that gamifies the entire process with quizzes, competitions, scoreboards, etc. and makes it way more fun for both employees and HR. The startup grabbed its seed round of $2 million this month. 

Wrapping up the list with a 3 million NIS grant ($0.93 million) is Saffron Tech, an ag-tech startup for cultivating the most expensive spice in the world: Saffron. They’re growing it under lab conditions, making it more available without losing its quality. Also, in the spirit of the Olympics, the company’s Business Development Manager is the Olympic medalist and world champion, former judoka Yarden Gerbi. Ippon!

The post 41 Israeli startups raised “only” $1.2 billion this August appeared first on GKI Group.

Hey everyone,
After some insane months in which Israeli startups raised over $2 billion, broke records, and became Unicorns, it’s finally time for a break and return to the old, regular numbers.

WHO ARE WE KIDDING?
Yup. Even in July, Israeli startups crossed the $2 billion mark. To be more precise, 49 startups and well-established scale-ups raised $2.571 billion.
That truly makes us wonder if there’s any more money left in the world.

On top of the list, we have the cryptocurrency infrastructure startup Fireblocks with a $310 million funding round, following their previous $133 million C Round only four months ago. Fireblocks turned into a double unicorn, as their valuation rose up to $2.2 billion. Damn, crypto is hot!

The famous Cybereason is just as unstoppable, with a fresh $275 million F Round that has resulted in the company’s total investments to $660 million, as well as the acquisition of another Israeli security analysis Empow at an undisclosed amount.

The face recognition startup AnyVision raised $235 million, but actually made headlines after the company’s CEO said that tech employees in Israel get paid too much. Ouch.

Recommendation platform and one of the largest Adtech companies in Israel (and the world), Outbrain, just went public this month! Woohooo!
But, wait, before that happened, they’ve raised an extra $200 million to boost things up before the IPO.
Well, congratulations on both!

Wiliot is developing innovative Bluetooth tags that can turn every product into a smart, connected product with no batteries necessary. The Wiliot IoT Pixel is a tag which can be placed on foods, goods, medicine, and more to collect data and transmit it to the cloud. That idea gave them a $200 million investment, and a fresh Unicorn status and valuation. Cool!

Another entrant to the Unicorn club is the cyber insurance startup At Bay, which raised $185 million. At Bay covers companies and enterprises from digital risks like ransomware, system failures, cryptojacking, and more.

The future is meatless and cruelty-free, or at least that’s what the numbers are telling us: Aleph Farms, a magical startup that makes slaughter-free cultivated meats, just raised $105 million– the largest funding round for a Foodtech startup in Israel.

Aiming for the moon once more: SpaceIL, the Israeli non-profit organization that built the spacecraft Beresheet and failed to land it on the moon in 2019, has raised $70 million to focus on project Beresheet 2. Time to reach for the stars!

Tailor Brands, the company that aims to eliminate the need for graphic designers with automatic branding and logo creation powered by AI, raised $50 million from GoDaddy! Kind of an interesting partnership…

Uniper Care, a startup that we gladly wrote about a while ago and featured on our “Startups for Seniors” blog post, finished a $14.5 million A Round this month.

Tax evaders? You better watch out. The new startup IVIX (currently in stealth mode) raised $13 million to help governments and authorities fight tax evasion with help from AI. Well… good luck!

The world is going contactless, and so are the grocery stores and supermarkets. Shopic developed a clip-on device that can turn every cart into a smart cart using computer vision to enable customers a frictionless experience on their way to self check-out. Shopic added a $10 million investment into their cart. 

In the spirit of the Olympics, time for some sports-tech. Zone7 is a platform that uses AI to predict injuries for athletes- based on medical information, wearable devices, and more- and helps teams manage their players to reduce chances of injuries by 75%.
Zone7 raised $8 million. That’s one for next year.

Continuing with sports tech, let’s race down to the bottom of the list and meet Griiip, an interesting startup that gripped an undisclosed investment from Porsche. The startup developed a Racing Media Platform that transmits motorsport data from the racing car, so viewers can also know what’s going on inside. 

And that’s what you came in for – the monthly infographic:

That’s it! See you next month!

Also, don’t miss out on our interview with Hyper Food Robotics – an interesting autonomous fast food robot that will probably star on this list someday! 

The post Unbelievable: 49 Israeli startups raised more than $2.5 billion in July 2021. appeared first on GKI Group.

Why?

Because this month, as well, 46 Israeli-founded startups (that we know of) raised more than $2.34 billion! Some of them broke a new record (we’re looking at you, Transmit Security) and new Unicorns were born. You could say it’s not so exciting anymore, but it’s actually even more exciting when it happens EVERY MONTH! 

So, on the top of the list, way above the other companies, we have the cybersecurity startup Transmit Security with a jaw-dropping $543 million Series A round at a pre-money $2.2 billion valuation. That’s probably the largest Series A round for a cybersecurity startup, and one of the largest financing rounds in Israel. Transmit Security, founded in 2014, is aiming to eliminate passwords and develop new, safer methods for user authentication. 

Another record was broken by Gong.io, which raised another $250 million in Series E that tripled the company’s valuation to $7.25 billion – the highest ever valuation for an Israeli startup.
Gong.io, in case you haven’t heard of the company, is used by more than 1,300 customers to automatically analyze sales calls and increase win rates. 

Transcribing startup Verbit, a regular guest on our startup list, grabbed $157 million and turned into a lovely Unicorn with more than $1 billion valuation. The company employs 30K freelance transcribers all around the globe, serves more than 400 customers, and will use the new funds to conquer the $30 billion-worth transcribing industry.

Claroty, founded in 2014, is the leading industrial cybersecurity platform that enables its customers to identify, manage, and protect their OT (operational technology), IoT, and IIoT assets. Claroty is also a new member in the Unicorn club after securing a $140 million investment at over $1b valuation. Welcome!

Time to congratulate Firebolt and its fresh $127 million Series B financing. The startup, which has only recently emerged from stealth mode, is a Cloud Data Warehouse as a Service that enables users to analyze big data faster than any other platform.

Another regular guest on our list, Bringg, raised its highest round up to date – $100 million– and also joined the Unicorn club this month. Bringg, which saw a meteoric rise during COVID-19, is the #1 unified delivery & fulfillment cloud solution to making last-mile delivery seamless and quick.

Say hello to Hailo, the developers of breakthrough AI microprocessors for edge devices, and probably the next billion-worth acquisition you’ll hear about. Hailo began mass production of its Hailo-8 processor for autonomous cars, smart cities, smart retail, and more. The company has completed its $100 million C round and has reached a $1 billion valuation, which makes it a… Unicorn. What a surprise. 

One of the most interesting companies in Israel is Venn, a new platform aiming to connect neighborhoods and turn them into thriving communities. Venn manages homes and shared spaces and connects everyone with an app: landlords with residents, residents with local businesses, and locals with other locals through real-life activities and events. The startup, which saw a 1200% growth during COVID-19, was connected to a $60 million investment this June.  

What happens when you mix WordPress with Wix? You get the website building platform Duda. Duda is aimed at professionals who wish to make every website their own by combining no-code drag-n-drop with developing additional elements using JavaScript, CSS, HTML and APIs.
According to the company, every 17 seconds, a new website is created on Duda. Meaning, by the time you finish reading this paragraph, another two or three are created. No wonder the startup raised $50 million.  

We’ve introduced you too many times to JoyTunes, the developer of educational apps for teaching children and adults how to play musical instruments, so we just want to congratulate the company for raising $50 million and becoming a Unicorn. It’s fun when companies like this do it!

From fun, to more fun – Comunix is the startup behind Pokerface, a popular online poker game with video and audio chat. It’s like a Zoom meeting, but without wasting your precious time. Their hit game has been downloaded by over eight million players, mostly thanks to the pandemic and quarantine, and made investors go all-in with a $30 million A round. A sure bet!

While we can’t tell you much about the MR (Mixed Reality) startup Mutilnarity, because it’s still in stealth mode, we can tell you that the company has raised $28 million – the biggest seed round in Israel. One of the founders worked in Magic Leap, but let’s hope that Multinarity will show better results. 

Call 911! We have an emergency – an Israeli startup raised $20 million! Carbyne is a company with a mission to redefine emergency collaboration and act as a channel between emergency call centers and first responders to worried citizens or people who need critical assistance from the police, medical team, or fire departments. Carbyne’s platform also allows callers to transmit a live video to the corresponding teams, without needing to download any app.   

Ready for the food of the future? Equinom is breeding seeds with AI, rather than genetic modification (GMO), to “turn regular food into super food”. The company is producing legumes, sesame, quinoa, and pea (coming soon) in crops of 100,000 acres in six continents. Equinom has raised $20 million C Round (sorry, seed round was a long time ago so that pun is gone). Bon appetit!   

Shhh! Can you hear that? That’s the sound of Silentium adding another $20 million D Round to its total investments. Silentium, founded in 1998, has developed a patented Active Noise Control (ANC) technology that can reduce unwanted noise (like a car engine, industrial machines, etc.) by 90%. 

Let’s wrap up this list with a startup fighting the worst and most dangerous insect on earth – the mosquito. Diseases like dengue, malaria, and zika- all spread by mosquitoes- are killing over 700,000 people every year. Diptera.ai raised $3 million to develop an affordable AI-based solution for sterile insect technique (SIT) and control mosquito populations. As VentureBeat accurately titled, “How AI and mosquito sex parties can save the world”. 

Not mentioned in the infographic, but also worth bringing up are the Israeli-founded, US-based companies Exabeam, with a $200 million funding round, and car loan financier Lendbuzz, which raised $300 million in credit and $60 million in equity. In addition, Next Silicon, a 3-year-old semiconductor startup hoping to beat Intel one day, raised $120 million and became a Unicorn. The funding round took place in October 2020, but the company has only now been publicly revealed. 

Well, what more can we add? Let’s hope that this “boom” of investments will continue, and we’ll see more tech employees in Israel laughing all the way to the bank. Nothing bad about innovation.

The post Israeli startups raised over $2 billion this month. Yes, again. [Infographic] appeared first on GKI Group.