Moshe Lichtman, the man once in charge of all of Microsoft’s technology development in Israel, says that the time has come to build a billion dollar Israeli company. In this post I break down an article by TheMarker.co.il about Moshe Lichtman, and why he is one of few men or women capable of leading an Israeli startup to global billions.
Globes reported a rumored $1.5 million A round for Tactus Mobile, an Israeli startup in the mobile payments space. The round was led by Lool Ventures, an incubator/micro fund started by ex AOL/Yedda execs and joined by Israeli angel Yuval Tal (founder of several payment startups including Payoneer) and additional private investors who led the company's seed round.
Innovid, a video advertising startup, has raised $9.5 million round led by Sequoia Capital with Genesis Partners and T-Ventures (Deutsche Telecom) participating in the round. As part of the funding round, Sequoia partner Gili Raanan will join Innovid’s Board of Directors.
Ad verification startup DoubleVerify has raised a fourth round of $33 million from private equity fund JMI Equity and Institutional Venture Partners (IVP). According to Ynet, the deal values DoubleVerify at $200 million. JMI knows quite a bit about display advertising, having bought DoubleClick before its $3.1 billion acquisition by Google.
Wanova, the Israeli corporate cloud services provider, has announced the completion of its round B financing totaling $10 million. The round was led entirely by previous backers: the Israeli offices of Greylock Partners and Carmel Ventures, as well as US fund Opus Capital.
According to the MoneyTree Report produced by PWC, Venture-backed companies raised $342 million in the first quarter of 2011, a dramatic 102% increase from the $170 million raised in the equivalent period in the previous year.
Following Wix's $40 million announcement yesterday - growth capital seems to be the name of the game in Israel this week. Adap.tv, the video advertising company started by Shopping.com's founder and former CTO Amir Ashkenazi, has announced a $20 million series C
Israeli startup headlines for March including new fundraising rounds, product launches, M&A deals, cleantech headlines and Israeli venture capital news, curated by VC Cafe, the home of Israeli startup news since 2005.
Wibbitz provides web developers with a plug-in which automatically transforms static web content into an interactive video. The company was one of the five winners at Seedcamp Tel Aviv 2011, an early-stage micro seed investment and mentoring programme. Startup Intelligence caught up with co-founders Zohar Dayan (CEO) and Yotam Cohen (VP Business Development) to find out more.
As every month, VC Cafe is re-posting the “Invest in Israel” Newsletter, published by the investment promotion center of Israel’s Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labor, which offers many helpful tools for prospecting investors. See the October 2010 edition after the jump. For previous editions, click here.
Weekly Firgun Newsletter
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