Invest in Israel Newsletter January 2012

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. These are the top headlines for January 2012.

Paranoid Angels: does your investor suffer from Paranoid Personality Disorder?

I was chatting to a friend that had ‘investor problems’ and we came to the conclusion that many angels suffer from paranoia. The World Health Organization paranoid personality disorder is characterized by the following: excessive sensitivity to setbacks and rebuffs; tendency to bear grudges persistently, i.e. refusal to forgive insults and injuries or slights; suspiciousness and a pervasive …

E&Y Journey 2011, The Great Debate: Go Public or Stay Private

Last week Ernst & Young held their annual conference Journey 2011 at the Hilton hotel in sunny Tel Aviv, Israel. There were over 2000 participants and around 100 speakers from all over the world. Representatives from banks, VCs, publicly traded companies, and local startups showed up to the “gala event.” The first panel was entitled …

Binpress – A Marketplace to Find Affordable and Trustworthy Code for Web Development

Binpress, the latest project by the Israeli startup incubator Lionite is making waves in the coding community with their source code marketplace. The purpose of binpress is to save coders time coding by finding existing solutions to time consuming problems. Their focus is on code for web applications in all sorts of languages, frameworks, and platforms.

Lool Ventures Bets on Tactus Mobile, Unveils ZooZ

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.

Israel and India to Increase Trade 3-Fold, to $15 Billion per Year

The goal of the ongoing Free Trade Agreement negotiation between India and Israel is to raise trade to $15 billion per year between the two countries by 2015. If you know of an Israeli company that is starting to do business in India, please let us know, we’d love to hear about you.

eBay acquires the GiftsProject and Opening Social Center in Israel

eBay acquired Israeli startup The GiftsProject for an undisclosed sum, according to AllthingsD. Founded in 2009, The GiftsProject has created a social commerce application, enabling users to vote, comment and buy a gift together as a group. Back in February, the GiftsProject announced a partnership with eBay as well as $1 million seed round from Gemini and Index ventures.

Tel Aviv Will Say Shalom to Google Street View

Israel’s ministry of Justice approved the use of Google Street view in Israel, after a poll conducted by the Israeli Government services and information portal showed that 70% out of the 5,000 respondents were in favor of the Service, according to Globes.

Tawkon Raises $700K in Seed Round to Stop Mobile Radiation

Tawkon has secured a second seed round of $700,000 led by Israeli angels including thetime (operated by Ilan Shiloah, Chairman of McCann Erickson Israel and Nir Tarlovsky) as well as Zvika Barinboim.

Highlighting Israeli Q2 2011 Israeli VC Investments

An illustrated report of global VC investments in Q2 2011, highlights the number and volume of deals in Israeli startups. It’s worth calling out some of the startups, which are not only making headway through product innovation, but also through the backing of world-class investment funds such as Sequoia, Battery, Greylock and up-and-comer funds such as Eric Schmidt’s Innovation Endeavors and Index Ventures.

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