Startup Investing

2013: The Startup Nation’s year in review

2013: The Startup Nation’s year in review

Jan 14, 2014 | ,

From the billion dollar acquisition of Waze to a plethora of IPOs in the industries of agriculture, science, technology, and social media, Israeli startups have been turning heads and smashing records after a very successful year in 2013. Global presence According to Cornell University’s 2013 Global Innovation Index Rankings, Israel ranked 14th of 142 countries in innovation, in addition to earning the number two spot among startup ecosystems worldwide, second only to California’s Silicon Valley. Startups developed in Israel seem to be instant sensations on various global markets. Despite Israel’s meager population of just over 8 million, the less-than sizeable nation-state has more companies listed on the NASDAQ’s exchange than any country after the United States and China . 2013 has been a year of momentous growth in the Israeli startup world — the third quarter of 2013 alone attracted $660 million investor dollars raised by 162 companies, the largest single-quarter performance in well over a decade. High tech success 2013 was a prodigious year for high-tech startups in Israel. While Waze took the cake with its billion-dollar acquisition, other...

Read More
The investor’s guide to the Israeli enterprise software market

The investor’s guide to the Israeli enterprise software market

Jan 14, 2014 | ,

Lost in some of the excitement around Israeli startups’ push into consumer technology is the country’s history in the software market. A key part of Israel’s success story — part of the economic fabric of the Startup Nation — is the enterprise software market. Established in the 1980s, Comverse, Amdocs, and Mercury Interactive were considered top-tier competition (especially in niche markets) to multinationals like SAP and Oracle. While their prominence may have faded somewhat, they did seed a whole ecosystem of enterprise-focused software startups that began in the 1990s and continues through today. That hasn’t been lost on companies like Oracle, which has purchased firms like Primavera, Demantra, and Convergin over the past decade. The following is a presentation given by OurCrowd‘s founder, Jon Medved, addressing the historical roots of the enterprise software industry in Israel, its enablers, and where the market may head in the near future.   The Investor’s Guide to the Israel Enterprise Software Industry from OurCrowd   Special thanks to OC’s Prescott Watson in the preparation of these materials!...

Read More
2013 was a multimillion-dollar year for leading Israeli agritech and medtech startups

2013 was a multimillion-dollar year for leading Israeli agritech and medtech startups

Jan 9, 2014 | ,

 This post was written by Karen Kozek from The Trendlines Group,  Israel’s leading agritech and medtech incubator.    It’s that time again. A time to take a look back at Trendlines and our portfolio companies in 2013. Last year, our portfolio companies raised ~$20 million (~NIS 70 million). Among these companies were LapSpace, Leviticus Cardio and MitrAssist. As well, ApiFix completed its second funding round. Last year marked the first time our companies received investments from Chinese investors. Since 2007, our portfolio companies have raised $140 million (not including government funding). With our entrepreneur partners, we created 9 new companies in 2013. On the agritech side, BioFishency, FuturaGraft, Metabolic Robots, Saturas, and Valentis started up. And in medical, we established Arch2Fix, Omeq Medical, STS Medical, and VisiDome. Since 2007, Trendlines has started 52 medical and agricultural technology companies. Our portfolio now numbers 55, including 15 revenue-stage companies. We announced 2 exits last year, and both involved major global players: Teleflex acquired Innolap and Baxter acquired FlowSense. Awards & Recognition A number of our companies gained local and international recognition last year. Israel’s Office of the Chief Scientist named ApiFix and Sol Chip “Best Start-Ups.” Sol Chip also received the award for Best Technical Development of Energy Harvesting at IDTechEx 2013 IDTechEx. GreenSpense walked away two awards from the 2013 International Cleantech Open...

Read More
The Jerusalem startup scene has never been better!

The Jerusalem startup scene has never been better!

Jan 5, 2014 | , , ,

Venture capital investors, angel funds, accelerator, these concepts are familiar today to every high-tech entrepreneur in Jerusalem, and there are quite a few of those. During the last week of December, Jerusalem’s Lander Institute hosted a gathering othat brought together around 100 Jerusalemite entrepreneurs and prominent investors operating in Israel. Among those present were Shahar Tzafrir of Magma Venture Partners (a primary investor in Waze), Evelyn Rubin of Jerusalem-based equity crowdfunding platform OurCrowd, Ben Wiener who recently launched a Jumpspeed, a micro-fund for early-stage startups in Jerusalem, Jerusalemite angel investor Reuven Ulmansky and Aviram Zolti, Israel’s Vice Chief Scientist. A last minute addition to this group was Zohar Levkovitz, an entrepreneur turned investor who recently sold his ads company Amobee to Singaporian SingTel for almost $350 million. This wasn’t the only event held in Jerusalem that week. One of the participants was complaining that the previous night there were 2 events appealing to the same target audience. This example illustrates the type of “difficulties” a Jerusalem entrepreneur faces these days. Over the past year and half something good and refreshing has been happening in...

Read More
Ushering in a New Year of angel investments: Current investments on OurCrowd 12.2013

Ushering in a New Year of angel investments: Current investments on OurCrowd 12.2013

Dec 29, 2013 | , , , ,

The ushering in of a New Year traditionally represents the time for reflection, resolution and most importantly, opportunity. As we reflect on this past year, we’ve made it our New Year’s resolution to continue to keep our investors up to date on all of the latest investment opportunities coming out of the booming Israeli startup scene. Here’s a short summary of 3 current investment opportunities on OurCrowd’s platform: Highcon: Future of digital printing/packaging For those investors following what’s happening, Israel has quickly become a global center of innovation in the digital printing industry — creating, developing, and selling technology to all the top players in the field. Addressing the massive packaging industry, OurCrowd portfolio company, Highcon has developed a solution to the labor-intensive, costly, folding carton-packaging production process. Their Euclid machine uses revolutionary digital technology to crease, fold, and cut cartons, instantaneously producing a finished packaging product. OurCrowd is investing alongside digital printing pioneer, Benny Landa, widely known as the “father of digital printing”, and a member of Highcon’s Board of Directors. Highcon’s impressive management also offers over 100...

Read More