miLAB is a research and prototyping lab that explores the future of media, technology, and human-computer interaction. Launched in the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya (IDC), possibly the top Israeli college (and my alma mater), the lab's ambitious vision is to empower students to create and invent, by bridging media and technology as well as academia and industry.
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 World Bank published the Doing Business 2011 report earlier this week, measuring how easy and pricey it is to complete the various bureaucratic procedures and red tape involved in setting up, running and shutting down a firm. Israel went up one spot from last year in the latest report, ranking 29 among the 183 countries included in the study.
The summary of high tech capital raising in Q2 is out, and the IVC Research Center confirm what we've already knew - capital raising in Israel is showing seeds of recovery (see VC Cafe's post "Crisis Shmisis") with $343 million raised in 104 deals, representing an increase of 47% from the previous quarter. Life sciences continue to lead capital raising, attracting $109 million, and Israeli VC investments are a much smaller slice of the pie.
The most obvious impact on the export-dependent sector was the incidence of widespread layoffs and massive declines in venture capital investment. While some analysts warn of the risks of a “double-dip” recession in the US, Israel’s principal export partner, others point to green shoots signaling the promise of recovery.
Lock and load – that’s what five Israeli startups did this week announcing a total of $30 million from both Israeli and international funds. After almost a year and a half of no investments in Israeli startups, Ouriel Ohayon’s LGI…
IVC Online has recently released the Q3 quarterly survey on the state of the VC industry in Israel. Q3 2008 contributed $600 million to the capital raised by Israeli VCs, 45% above Q3/07 levels. These figures are not surprising, given…
Exciting day for Israel based Mo’minis: the company has launched its new website offering an DYI mobile game studio and announcing GameCast #1 – a rapid mobile games creation contest. The company partnered with Sun Microsystems and Orange Israel in…
Today London Business School hosted the Global Security Challenge finals, where six homeland security startups , selected from hundred of applicants, competed for a grand prize of $500K. Among the six was Israel‘s Intuview – creator of “artificial intuition” software…
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