Winners and Losers of the Week: Facebook’s Israeli Team Behind New Libra Cryptocurrency Tops This Week’s List

Selection of this week's winners and losers by CTech's Editor

This week’s winners are:

 

 

Facebook’s Israeli engineers, data scientists, designers, and product managers who make up a few dozen of Calibra’s employees. This week, the tech giant released a white paper for its new cryptocurrency, Libra. Facebook also announced a new cryptocurrency wallet for the coin, Calibra, being developed by a wholly owned subsidiary of the same name. At the head of Calibra is David Marcus, a former PayPal president, who until recently headed Facebook Messenger. Read more

Tomer Barel. Photo: PR

 

Sugar enhancing startup DouxMatok, for raising $22 million in a funding round led by Singapore-based firm BlueRed Partners. DouxMatok’s product makes sugar taste sweeter by maximizing the efficiency of transporting sugar to the taste buds and enhancing the sense of sweetness transmitted to the brain. Read more

 

Tel Aviv-based computer vision startup AnyVision, for completing a $73 million investment round. Microsoft’s venture fund M12, Silicon Valley-based DFJ Growth, and Eyal Ofer's O.G. Tech Partners, have joined a series A funding round for the startup. Read more

 

 

This week’s losers are:

 

Intel Israel. The company announced the launch of its new Israeli startup accelerator Ignite earlier this week, but also postponed the construction of its new fabrication facility in southern Israel. Two subcontractors confirmed that work on the planned expansion, initially intended to begin in 2019, is being pushed off to an undisclosed date. Read more

 

Oracle, for laying off dozens of employees in Israel. The cutbacks will affect workers employed by the company’s local cloud applications subsidiary Ravello, which it acquired in 2016 for $430 million. Read more

 

 

This week’s data point: 43%

 

43% of all venture capital investments deals in Israeli tech in 2018 were participated by at least one corporate venture capital (CVC) vehicle. In 2012, CVCs were involved in 6% of the 773 deals recorded that year, while in 2018, that percentage rose to 18% out of 949 deals. Read more

 

CVC investments in Israeli tech

 

  

 

This week’s top deals:

 

IGP acquires 25% stake in mobile forensics firm Cellebrite for $110 million. Read more

 

Anti-phishing company IronScales raises $15 million. Read more

 

Zebra Medical receives FDA clearance for its brain hemorrhage alert technology. Read more

 

Former Mossad Director Tamir Pardo joins medicinal cannabis startup Cann10. Read more

 

Elbit awarded $73 million contract to supply missile systems to German Air Force. Read more

 

Elbit was also awarded $50 million aircraft part supply contract. Read more

 

Cybersecurity company Checkmarx to hire 100 additional people. Read more