Startup Investing

Video Tech: 8 Israeli Tech Trends, 8 Crazy Nights 2015 (6/8)

Video Tech: 8 Israeli Tech Trends, 8 Crazy Nights 2015 (6/8)

Dec 12, 2015 | ,

It’s that time of year! Join us for the next eight days for what’s become an OurCrowd tradition: highlighting during Hanukkah — the festival of lights – the top eight Israeli tech trends that spark the interest of our investment team and what they see on the ground. Trend #6: Video Tech Behind the trend: Video has been the top focus of online marketing and advertising in recent years and shows no indication of disappearing as a promotional preference in 2016. With Google’s decision to include video-based advertisements in search, and Twitter and Facebook testing auto-play video in their user’s feeds, it’s clear the industry’s biggest players believe the market is ready to accept more video as advertising. This is in no small part due to our current obsession with promoting ourselves via video through apps like Instagram, Snapchat, Periscope, or Vine. Last month, Snapchat announced that it had six billion video views a day. Also last month, Instagram launched its second video app – Boomerang –that combines photos and one-second videos that run in loops backwards and forwards. What’s...

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Virtual Reality: 8 Israeli Tech Trends, 8 Crazy Nights 2015 (5/8)

Virtual Reality: 8 Israeli Tech Trends, 8 Crazy Nights 2015 (5/8)

Dec 11, 2015 | ,

It’s that time of year! Join us for the next eight days for what’s become an OurCrowd tradition: highlighting during Hanukkah — the festival of lights – the top eight Israeli tech trends that spark the interest of our investment team and what they see on the ground. Trend #5: Virtual Reality Behind the trend: ‘Computer-simulated reality’, ‘immersive media’, whatever you call virtual reality, the artificial multisensory experience its technology offers is only getting better with each passing year. For more than a decade, we’ve seen advances in VR tech applied to military training, urban design, video games, and other home entertainment. In September, ABC News became the first news organization to employ an immersive virtual reality experience in a newscast, inviting their viewers on a tour of Damascus, Syria. The war-torn city – largely cut off to the rest of the world – is now, in a way, accessible to anyone with a mobile device and a 3D viewing box. The Economist took on a similar initiative this past summer with RecoVR: Mosul, a recreation of archaeological artifacts from...

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Smart City: 8 Israeli Tech Trends, 8 Crazy Nights 2015 (4/8)

Smart City: 8 Israeli Tech Trends, 8 Crazy Nights 2015 (4/8)

Dec 10, 2015 | ,

It’s that time of year! Join us for the next eight days for what’s become an OurCrowd tradition: highlighting during Hanukkah — the festival of lights – the top eight Israeli tech trends that spark the interest of our investment team and what they see on the ground. Trend #4: Smart City Behind the trend: We’ve got smartphones, smart cars, and more of us are living in smart homes. It’s only natural that local governments are becoming more aware of and adopting policies that will transform their municipalities into smart cities. Many cities, for instance, have begun budgeting for or investing in projects employing the Internet of Things (IoT), especially ones that relate to public safety and transportation. In Israel, the country that invented Waze, finding new ways to take advantage of crowdsourcing and data tracking to make the lives of its citizens easier is an attractive mission for a lot of young entrepreneurs, who, in a search for a solution to a personal challenge (carpooling, for instance) create a product or service applicable to a wide audience. What’s...

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Autonomous Cars: 8 Israeli Tech Trends, 8 Crazy Nights 2015 (3/8)

Autonomous Cars: 8 Israeli Tech Trends, 8 Crazy Nights 2015 (3/8)

Dec 9, 2015 | ,

It’s that time of year! Join us for the next eight days for what’s become an OurCrowd tradition: highlighting during Hanukkah — the festival of lights – the top eight Israeli tech trends that spark the interest of our investment team and what they see on the ground. Trend #3: Autonomous Cars Behind the trend: Science fiction writers and fans have been dreaming up self-driving cars for almost 100 years. In July, CNBC reported Google’s claim that autonomous cars will finally be available to consumers as early as 2020. But, of course, as with any discussion on artificial intelligence these days, the debate continues over whether we humans are ready for cars to drive themselves. Relying on cars to brake and steer may offer us a false sense of security and lead to more accidents, or, as hackers showed us last summer, the more we rely on our car’s digital capacities the more vulnerable we may be to virtual, invisible pranksters or villains. What’s up next: It seems that nothing is putting the brakes on driverless cars (well, except that one time when...

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Green Tech: 8 Israeli Tech Trends, 8 Crazy Nights 2015 (2/8)

Green Tech: 8 Israeli Tech Trends, 8 Crazy Nights 2015 (2/8)

Dec 8, 2015 | ,

It’s that time of year! Join us for the next eight days for what’s become an OurCrowd tradition: highlighting during Hanukkah — the festival of lights – the top eight Israeli tech trends that spark the interest of our investment team and what they see on the ground. Trend #2: Green Tech Behind the trend: For its entire existence, Israel – out of necessity — has been a leading research hub in areas related to the environment, from water conservation and desalinization to agriculture to alternative energy sources. So much so, other countries often seek advice and innovation first from Israel: this year, in fact, California turned to Israel to learn how to deal with four years of devastating droughts. As concerns rise about ramifications of climate change, more attention is being paid in general to clean air and water, as well as food security; all areas in which Israeli startups are developing solutions. The Israeli delegation to COP21 (the UN climate change conference held in Paris last week) was headed by no less than Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, reports...

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