The LinkedIn IPO this week may have opened the gates for an Israeli market thirsty for exits, but in the meanwhile, VC funding in Israel continues with business as usual. Below are three recent founding rounds in Israeli venture-backed companies. Onavo, Kaminario and VideoSurf are three recent examples of venture-backed Israeli startups that have raised funding.
Green Road raises $13 million from existing investors and appoints Jim Heeger, a silicon valley veteran as the new CEO.
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.
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For the third consecutive year, Israeli financial newspaper Calcalist put together a list of the top 50 startups in Israel (in Hebrew). VC Cafe took note to bring you the full list of top 50 Israeli startups in English: PowerMat, Broadlight, Conduit, PrimeSense, Objet, Kenshoo, Imperva, Anobit, DoubleVerify, Wix, SuperDerivatives, AeroScout, Siano, Waze, TaKaDu, ExLibris, SolarEdge, Adsmarket, (Matomy), dbMotion, RADWIN, cVidya, Boxee, N—trig, Cotendo, Varonis, Kontera, Outbrain, RedBend, Mobixell, Celeno, AMIMON, Pontis, Gigya, Clarizen, Mobileye, Celtro, Altair, Amobee, WhiteSmoke, Cyber—Ark, OpTier, Wanova, ConteXtream, eXelate, Peer39, Netformx, Tradonomi (eToro), Surf, Zend, Soluto
AcceloWeb, an Israeli startup formerly known as Fasterweb, has been acquired by <a title="limelight networks" href="http://www.limelightnetworks.com">Limelight Networks</a> (Nasdaq:LLNW) for undisclosed terms. Acceloweb develops technology that helps increase the load time of websites, a need that has been growing as applications migrate to the cloud. Following the deal Acceloweb will become Limelight's development center in Israel.
The wave of Israeli startup exits continues. Analyzd, a startup started by two brothers in a garage, developing fraud detection algorithms for e-commerce sites, has been acquired by Swedish company Klarna for an undisclosed sum estimated at tens of millions of Dollars. Analyzd is less than one year old and completely self-funded by the Samet brothers, Ohad and Yuval.
In 2008, we covered the story of EyeView on VC Cafe. Three friends won the Harvard Business School business plan competition, carried on with the venture to raise money from respectable VCs in Israel and land clients like Yahoo and eBay. But since then, very little was heard about the company until now. Beet.tv reported that Innovation Endeavors, the VC fund led by Google's chairman Eric Schmidt, has invested an additional $1 million in Eyeview, bringing the total investment in the company to $6 million to date from Gemini and Lightspeed ventures.
IVC Research Center has released the Quarterly Survey of Israeli Private Equity Deals for Q1 2011. Eleven private equity deals in Q1 2011, amounted at $216 million, a 68% decrease from the $668 million in Q1 last year, and a 74% decline from the previous quarter ($826 million)
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 April 2011 edition after the jump.
VC Cafe asked European and Israeli VCs for their wish list from entrepreneurs, or in other words, what should entrepreneurs be doing more or less of, to maximize their chances of success.
Yet another Israeli startup exit today, with the announcement on the acquisition of Picscout, provider of image copyright protection software, by Getty Images for ab undisclosed sum. Picscout was founded in 2003 by Eyal Gura and Offir Gutelzon and has raised approximately $1 million since inception.
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