Israeli startups raised around $850 million in June, according to Globes, Israel’s financial daily, closing another solid month of fundraising.
So far this year Israeli start ups have raised an estimated $3.3 billion in the first six months of the year according to figures from IVC-ZAG and company press releases, and are on course to beat last year’s record of $5.24 billion, Globes reported.
This month’s biggest deal came on June 27, when Landa Digital Printing of Rehovot announced the completion of a $300 million equity financing led by two German firms owned by entrepreneur Susanne Klatten: private investment firm SKion and specialty chemicals group ALTANA, an already-existing shareholder. The latest investment is in addition to more than $400 million previously invested by founder Benny Landa and ALTANA in Landa Digital Printing.
This may have been the largest deal, but there were also many other significant rounds during the month.
Global taxi-hailing and ridesharing pioneer Gett of Tel Aviv raised $80 million from Volkswagen and other previous investors including Access Industries, boosting the company’s valuation to $1.4 billion. Gett and subsidiary Juno operate in 120 cities worldwide.
Claroty of Tel Aviv and New York raised $60 million in a Series B funding round led by Singapore’s governmental holding company Temasek Holdings with participation from Rockwell Automation, Aster Capital, Next47, Envision Ventures, and Tekfen Ventures. Former investors Bessemer Venture Partners, Team8, Innovation Endeavors, and ICV also participated in the round. Claroty specializes in cybersecurity for industrial networks.
Another cybersecurity company, Elbit Systems subsidiary Cyberbit, raised $30 million from private equity investor Claridge Israel.
Online lender BlueVine Capital completed a $60 million Series E funding round led by Menlo Ventures with SVB Capital and existing investors including Lightspeed Venture Partners, 83 North, Citi Ventures, and Rakuten Capital’s Rakuten Fintech Fund. BlueVine currently employs 200 people in California and Israel.
Zebra Medical Vision of Kibbutz Shefayim raised $30 million in Series C funding led by aMoon Ventures with the participation of Aurum, Johnson & Johnson Innovation JJDC, Intermountain Healthcare, Fei Fei Lee, Richard Socher, Khosla Ventures, NVIDIA, Marc Benioff, OurCrowd and Dolby Ventures. Zebra now is developing an automated chest x-ray analysis product.
BigID, a software startup based in New York and with an engineering office in Tel Aviv, raised $30-million in Series B funding led by California’s Scale Venture Partners.
Insight Venture Partners led a $25 million round of investment in YOOBIC, an SaaS company that helps brands and retailers track merchandising and marketing operations. Felix Capital, the London-based venture firm that led YOOBIC’s Series A in November 2016, also participated. Based in London, Paris and Tel Aviv and used in 44 countries, the YOOBIC solution has been deployed by 100 retailers including Lacoste, Aldi UK and Peugeot.
Vi (formerly LifeBeam) raised $20 million to develop and expand its artificial intelligence fitness business. Investors included Joy Ventures, Squarepeg Capital, New Era, Cerca Capital, Triventures, Wellborn Ventures, and FGI Capital together, as well as angel investors.
Preempt Security raised $17.5 million from investors including Intel Capital, Blackstone, ClearSky and General Catalyst. The company is headquartered in San Francisco with an R&D center in Ramat Gan.
IntSights Cyber Intelligence completed a $17 million Series C round led by Tola Capital, a Seattle, Washington-based venture capital firm. New York-based IntSights has offices in Herzliya, Amsterdam, Boston and Plano, Texas.
Orasis Pharmaceuticals of Herzliya raised $13 million in a Series B round led by California-based Visionary Ventures, with participation from Sequoia Capital, SBI Japan-Israel Innovation Ventures and LifeSci Venture Partners. Orasis is developing eye drops for vision correction.
Cynet of Rishon LeZion and New York raised $13 million in Series B funding led by Norwest Venture Partners, Shlomo Kramer and Ibex Investors.
Hailo, a Tel Aviv company developing a proprietary chip for deep learning on edge devices, raised $12.5 million in Series A funding from OurCrowd, Maniv Mobility, the Drive accelerator fund Next Gear and from angel investors including Hailo Chairman Zohar Zisapel and Delek Motors CEO Gil Agmon.
Beyeonics Surgical, a subsidiary of Elbit Systems, raised $11.5 million in its first funding round since it was spun off. Beyeonics develops visualization technologies for surgeons including a head-mounted visor that replaces surgical microscopes and monitors by transmitting real-time high-resolution imaging of the surgical area.
Silverfort, a Tel Aviv startup developing multi-factor authentication technology, raised $11.5 million from TLV Partners, StageOne Ventures and Singtel Innov8.
The following Israeli companies each raised $10 million during June 2018: VisIC Technologies of Ness Ziona; JoyTunes of Tel Aviv; and DocAuthority of Ra’anana.
Codefresh of Ramat Gan raised $8 million in a Series B round led by M12, the venture capital fund of Microsoft. Previous investors Hillsven Capital, Viola Ventures and CEIF also took part.
The following companies raised $5 million: Tel Aviv-based cybersecurity startup Panorays, Tel Aviv-based data detection company Prifender, fintech startup Obligo, which is based in New York with a development center in Ramat Gan; Tel Aviv-based educational games startup TinyTap; Caesarea-based medical devices company XACT Robotics; and Photomyne, a Tel Aviv startup developing an AI-powered app for digitizing photos.
Fintech company Cappitech of Herzliya raised $4 million in a Series A financing round led by 83North and joined by the cofounders of Markit.
The Teddy Sagi Group invested $4 million in Tel Aviv-based Arbitrip, which offers a platform for booking hotel rooms for business trips.
Arm, a supplier of semiconductor IP, is making a $3 million to $4 million strategic investment in Telco Systems, dually headquartered in Mansfield, Massachusetts and northern Israeli town Yokneam, as part of a joint development agreement. Telco is a subsidiary of London-listed BATM Advanced Communications.
Guardian Optical Technologies of Tel Aviv, which is developing a sensor for car interiors, raised $3.1 million.
Social video company IMGN Media (formerly Comedy Technologies) raised $3 million in a Series A round from Dot Capital, Rhodium, United Talent Agency and KDC Media Fund, which is a joint venture of Keshet and Dick Clark Productions. IMGN is based in New York with R&D in Tel Aviv.
Ride Vision of Herzliya raised $2.5 million in seed funding from YL Partners GP to help develop its computer-vision collision-avoidance technology for motorcyles.
Restaurant digital payment platform PaidIt of Ramat Hasharon raised $1 million in seed money from the Hatchery startup hub and several kibbutzim.
In an indication that July will continue the trend, today Israeli-Singapore company Trax, which provides computer vision and analytics solutions for retail, announced that it had raised $125m. in a round led by Boyu Capital, one of the largest private equity investment firms in China.
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