Abigail Klein Leichman
March 4, 2018

Mobileye and OrCam cofounder and Intel Senior Vice President Amnon Shashua figured prominently in the top fundraising news from Israel during February 2018.

Shashua is joining the board of directors of Tel Aviv-based Moovit, developer of the world’s most popular free transit information app, after Moovit raised $50 million in a Series D round led by Intel Capital with participation of Sequoia, BMW iVentures, NGP, Ashton Kutcher’s Sound Ventures, BRM, Gemini, Vaizra, Vintage and Hanaco.

OrCam, which has developed a wireless smart camera that attaches to glasses to help blind people read texts and signs and recognize faces, completed a $30.4 million funding round by selling a 3 percent stake to investors including Israel’s Clal Insurance and Meitav Dash. The company now is valued at $1 billion.

In other funding news for February, Tipalti global payables automation solution closed a $30 million Series C financing round led by Zeev Ventures. This brings the B2B fintech leader’s total funding to over $50 million. Working with clients such as Twitter, Amazon, GoDaddy and Houzz, Tipalti has offices in Herzliya and the United States.

Tel Aviv-based warehouse robotics startup CommonSense Robotics raised $20 million in a Series A funding round led by Playground Global, a venture capital fund co-founded by Andy Rubin, the developer of the Android operating system. Additional participants include Innovation Endeavors, Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s venture capital firm and Tel Aviv-based Aleph Venture Capital, both of which participated in the company’s $6 million seed round completed in August 2017.

Industrial IoT and control systems cybersecurity company CyberX raised $18 million in Series B funding led by Norwest Venture Partners with previous investors Glilot Capital Partners, Flint Capital, ff Venture Capital and OurCrowd. The company is headquartered in Boston with a development center in Herzliya.

Blender Global, which has developed an e-lending platform raised $16 million in capital (led by Blumberg Capital) and debt (raised from European Eiffel Investment Group). The company has offices in Israel, Italy and Lithuania.

Tel Aviv-based medical device startup Perflow Medical, which develops devices for neurovascular interventions, completed a $12 million financing round from existing and new investors.

Beersheva-based cybersecurity company Morphisec, raised $12 million in Series B funding from new investor Orange Digital Ventures as well as existing investors Jerusalem Venture Partners, GE and Deutsche Telekom. Additional investors in Morphisec include La Maison, Portage Partners, OurCrowd, Kodem Growth Partners and Evolution Equity Partners. Morphisec also has an office in Boston.

Tunity closed a $12 million Series A financing round from existing investors including former Morgan Stanley CEO John Mack and WeWork founder and CEO Adam Neumann, as well as new investors including MGM Resorts International. Tunity’s app allows viewers to stream the audio from muted TV shows to their smartphone. The startup is headquartered in New York with a development center in Tel Aviv.

Anagog, whose AI technology monitors and analyzes mobility patterns using smartphone sensors, raised a reported $10 million in Series B funding from German automaker Daimler and from Mizmaa Ventures. The Daimler investment came through the Mercedes-Benz development center in Tel Aviv.

Enterprise software company Totango closed a $9 million financing round from existing investors BGV, Canvas, Pitango and Interwest, as well as new investor Grayhawk Capital. Totango has offices in Tel Aviv, California and New York.

Edgybees, whose technology enables augmented reality (AR) on high-speed platforms like drones and cars, and whose First Response app has been used by emergency teams responding to the Northern California wildfires and post-hurricane flooding in Florida, raised $5.5 million in seed funding from Motorola Solutions Venture Capital, Verizon Ventures, OurCrowd, 8VC, NFX and Aspect Ventures.

MeMed of Tirat Carmel was awarded a $4,079,159 grant by the US Department of Defense’s Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs to set up manufacturing processes for its point-of-care platform that differentiates between bacterial and viral infections. A $9.2 million contract from the Defense Threat Reduction Agency awarded last year to MeMed is supporting the final stages of prototype development.

Precision-agriculture startup Saturas raised $4 million from Hubei Forbon Technology in China; Ramat Magshimim collective farm in Israel; and Miguel Torres Winery, one of the largest wineries in Spain and owner of vineyards in California and Chile. Existing investors Gefen Capital, Trendlines, the Israel Farmers’ Union, and Shlomo Nechama also participated in the round.

Connected-car ecosystem developer Otomono received $3 million from Japan’s NTT Docomo Ventures. Otonomo is based in Herzliya and Redwood City, California.

CoreBone, which has developed a bone-graft product made of enhanced coral, raised $617,128 in a crowdfunding campaign that ended in February.

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