Israeli startup Idomoo, which developed a platform for easily creating personalized videos for companies, has closed a $9 million financing round, led by Marker. TechCrunch reports that Idomoo’s platform is being used by TIM Cellular in Brazil, Portugal Telecom and Generali, the global insurance company – serving tens of millions of videos in 16 different languages.
Online retail giant eBay is setting up an incubator in Israel. Calcalist reports that the incubator, to be built at the company’s Israeli headquarters in Netanya, will focus on startups dealing with online trade, social networks and big data.
Israeli high tech and venture capital database IVC reports that Israeli companies have raised an overall amount of $474 million in the first quarter of 2013. The amount is two percent lower than funds raised in the equivalent quarter last year.
JANVEST Technologies announces the closing of its $5 million Angel fund to be invested in 10-12 early stage Israeli technology start-ups, of which seven have already been selected. The fund will allocate up to $500,000 to each company, in addition to providing ongoing advisory services and business development support from the firm’s bi-national management team.
American accelerator program MassChallenge is setting up shop in Israel. The accelerator, which was founded in Boston in 2010, is a nonprofit organization supported by Kraft, Verizon, Fidelity Investments, Microsoft, 3M and private investors such as Red Sox owner John Henry. Three Israeli companies have participated in the program in the past: DriveWay, Joytunes and STU.
Korean electronics giant Samsung has announced that its new $100 million seed-investment fund will focus on three regions: Silicon Valley, Massachusetts and Israel. In addition, the Korean company announced that it will hold a startup competition later this year, in which the winners will share a $10 million seed-investment prize.
Spring Capital, a VC owned by the Singaporean government, which manages $150 million, is looking to invest in Israeli startups. Israeli financial magazine Globes reports that the VC is in talks with several Israeli startups and that investment will focus on companies at the beginning of the sales stage in areas such as software, algorithm processing, Big Data, security, and biotechnology.
Innotribe, a competition between startups involved in financial technology, will launch in Tel Aviv early January. Although this will be the third year in which the competition, sponsored by the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), is held, it is the first time that Israeli companies will take part in it.
Prime-minister of the United Kingdom David Cameron has announced that he intends to encourage cooperation between Britain and Israel in the field of high tech. Cameron made the announcement during the Conservative Friends of Israel lunch and said that it’s only fitting that the first tech envoy out of the UK will be to the “startup nation”.
Online search and advertising giant Google has opened a Startup Campus in Tel Aviv. The company describes the campus as a “one-floor event & community space and pre-accelerator program.” Google Campus TLV will cater to local early-stage startups and developers with tech talks, events and hackathons.