During the month of September 2017, investments in Israeli companies remained strong.
Innoviz Technologies of Kfar Saba raised $65 million in Series B funding as its LiDAR sensing solution for autonomous vehicles moves into mass production. Delphi Automotive, Magna International, 360 Capital Partners, Glory Ventures, Naver, Zohar Zisapel, Vertex Venture Capital, Magma Venture Partners, Amiti Ventures and Delek Motors participated in this round.
Nanotechnology materials pioneer StoreDot of Herzliya closed a $60 million third round led by the Daimler truck division, which has joined as a strategic partner to accelerate the adoption of StoreDot’s FlashBattery technology to the electric vehicles market.
Playbuzz, the award-winning storytelling platform for interactive content, raised $35 million in Series C funding, led by Viola Growth with participation from existing investors including Disney, Saban Ventures, 83North, Carmel Ventures, firstime and Oded Vardi. Playbuzz has offices in Tel Aviv, New York, London, Hamburg, São Paulo, Los Angeles and Moscow.
Airobotics automated industrial drones completed a $32.5 million funding round led by BlueRun Ventures China, as well as Microsoft Ventures, OurCrowd.com and another strategic investor. The company is based in Petah Tikva with offices in California and Australia.
Integra Holdings, an investment company exclusively focused on life-science innovations originating from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, closed a $25 million investment led by Singapore-based investment company Temasek. Also participating were Arie Capital and the Israeli Teachers’ and Kindergartens’ Study Funds, one of Integra’s current shareholders.
Aqua Security, a container security platform provider based in Ramat Gan, San Francisco and Burlington (Vermont), received $25 million in Series B funding, the largest funding to date in the container security space. Led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, the round had participation from Microsoft Ventures, TLV Ventures and Shlomo Kramer.
$16 million was raised by Elastifile from investors led by Western Digital. The company, based in Herzliya with offices in Silicon Valley and The Netherlands, makes a data platform for cloud enterprises.
Magenta Medical of Kadima closed its $15 million Series B round by a syndicate of investors comprised of Abiomed, Pitango Venture Capital, JAFCO of Japan, and industry and cardiovascular experts including Dr. Jacques Seguin. Founded five years ago, Magenta Medical is developing novel therapeutic approaches to the management and treatment of acute heart failure.
Panoply expanded its Series A funding to a total of $13 million. The latest to join the round is C5 Capital with a $5 million infusion. The privately held company, based in San Francisco and Tel Aviv, offers the world’s only ETL-less Smart Data Warehouse, which uses proprietary machine learning and natural language processing algorithms to mine actionable insights from big data.
Phytech closed an $11 million Series B financing round led by Tencent Holdings Limited, with participation of existing investors Syngenta Ventures and others. Based at Kibbutz Yad Mordechai, Phytech uses IoT sensors to optimize irrigation strategy.
Augmedics of Yokne’am Illit, a developer of an augmented-reality (AR) surgical visualization system, has secured $8.3 million in Series A funding. The round was led by AO Invest, based in Davos, together with the Israel Innovation Authority, Terra Venture Partners and other undisclosed investors.
DouxMatok of Petah Tikva, developer of targeted flavor-delivery technologies, received $8.1 million from Pitango and existing shareholders, including Gil Horsky and FoodLab Capital, to commercialize its patented sugar reduction solution by the end of 2018.
Clinical-stage cell immunotherapy company Enlivex Therapeutics of Jerusalem raised $8 million from Korea Investment Partners and Hadasit Bio Holdings. The financing is expected to fund Phase III clinical trials of Enlivex’s lead compound, Allocetra, for the prevention of graft vs. host disease after bone-marrow transplantation.
Kfar Saba-based Colospan, which is developing a sleeve for protecting against intestinal leakage after a colectomy, completed a $7.7 million financing round from Triventures, Docor, Amit Technion and Clal Biotechnology Industries’ investment fund Anatomy.
Fidmi Medical, a portfolio company of The Trendlines Group in Misgav, received an investment of $2 million from B. Braun Melsungen AG for further development of its low-profile tube-feeding device with a replaceable inner tube that keeps the feeding line fresh and prevents clogging.
Two other Trendlines Group portfolio companies each raised $2 million: ag-tech company EdenShield, maker of natural non-toxic crop protection products (from Kibbutz Yotvata and equity crowdfunding platform OurCrowd); and Vensica Medical, which makes an ultrasound solution for delivering drugs to treat overactive bladder (from US medical device company Cogentix Medical).
Tel Aviv-based ZenCity completed a $1.7 million financing round toward developing an artificial-intelligence dashboard to help municipalities understand the needs of their residents. The round was led by Canaan Partners Israel with participation from i3 Equity Partners, which is supported by Microsoft Ventures, GE Ventures, Tata, Pitango Venture Capital, and others.
Trendlines Group portfolio company ElastiMed raised $1 million from Pix Vine Capital, new private investors, and the Israeli Innovation Authority in its second financing round toward commercializing its smart compressiontherapy solution.
(via Israel21c)
[Photo: Israel21c]