VC Cafe asked entrepreneurs to tell us what type of help or support they wish they could get from the venture capital investors. What started originally as how can VCs differentiate themselves to stand out, quickly became an Entrepreneur's wish list from its VCs.
Ybrant Media, an large Indian Media portfolio of companies, has acquired Israeli startup PicApp for an undisclosed amount. This is Ybrant Media's second acquisition in Israel. The company has previously bought Advertising startup Oridian in 2007.
Facebook surprised with its first acquisition in Israel today, with the announcement that it is buying Israeli startup Snaptu (previously known as Moblica) for an estimated $60-70 million. Founded in 2007 by Ron Makavy, Micha Berdichevsky, and Barak Naveh, Snaptu raised a total of $9 million in three rounds
Viola Private Equity, an Israeli PE fund with $164 million under management for technology buyouts, has announced a $7 million investment in Zend, the leading provider of open-source and commercial solutions based on PHP web applications.
The latest VentureDeal quarterly report is out (see pdf) and it suggests that VC activity in tech has slowed down in the third quarter. Overall, 343 US companies raised $1.8 billion in venture capital funding in Q3 2010, representing a 14% decline in total funding amount compared to the previous quarter. The number of companies funded has also declined by 6%.
LiveU has announced a third round of $11 million, led by Pitango and joined by existing investors, Carmel Ventures and Canaan Partners. This brings LiveU's total investment to date to over $23 million.As a result of this round Isaac Hillel, managing partner at Pitango, will join LiveU's board.
Israeli startup Oversi has announced a series C round of $4.9 million investment round led by Carmel ventures and joined by Cisco, Smac partners and StageOne ventures. Oversi offers a multi-service platform for over-the-top (OTT) content, including Internet video, peer-to-peer (P2P) and other media applications.
SundaySky, an Israeli startup which provides e-commerce businesses a platform for dynamic videos), has raised a $9 million round led by Norwest Venture Partners (NVP) joined by previous investors Globespan Capital Partners and Carmel Ventures
The second quarter of 2010 has come and gone and despite the depleting VC and incubator capital in Israel, the quarter has brought approximately 40 deals with over $400 million invested
The proposal will enable investors in startups to receive tax write-offs on investments for high-tech companies who spend at least 70% of their salaries in Israel. The new law is part of broader reforms to boost the high-tech sector, led by Dr. Yuval Steinitz, Israel's minister of finance and his ministry's director general, Haim Shani
