Israel Active

Over the past two decades, Israeli winemakers have earned a reputation for producing some of the world’s best wines. At the International Kosher Wine Festival in Tel Aviv, Israeli vintners and their fans enjoyed a truly awe-inspiring display of wines from Samaria to the Golan.

Israeli startup Model9 Ltd. has raised $9 million in a funding round led by Intel Capital, the venture arm of chipmaker Intel. Model9 develops a cloud-based service to backup, restore, archive, and encrypt mainframe data sets and files to private or public cloud storage.

Israeli startup Nayax develops cashless payment systems for unattended machines. It has just taken over Israeli startup Modularity and its credit card payment clearing technologies for Android devices. Modularity also allows businesses to offer clients cash withdrawal services.

As reported previously, payments giant VISA partnered with Israel’s ChargeAfter – provider of software for flexible point-of-sale credit options. VISA has just expanded the partnership, giving ChargeAfter access to 16,000 issuing banks, acquirers and merchants.

Armin Laschet, minister-president of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany’s most populous state, has opened an Economy, Science, Education, Youth and Culture office in Tel Aviv. Laschet is known as a staunch supporter of the Jewish state.

Jason Greenblatt, former Assistant to the President of the United States, and Special Representative for International Negotiations, will join Israeli Crowdfunding investing platform OurCrowd as a partner with responsibility for building ties with the Middle East region.

Over the past year, multinationals have opened 16 new development centers in Tel Aviv in order to employ Israeli talent. Of the 107 multinationals, the new additions include Russia’s Yandex, SafeCharge (part of Canada’s Nuvei Corp) and Ford Motor Company. Tel Aviv has 2,000 startups.

US-based VC firm Insight Partners has led a $200 million investment in Israel-linked cybersecurity company SentinelOne. Previous investments valued SentinelOne as a Unicorn (companies worth over $1 billion). The new funds provide SentinelOne with money for strategic acquisitions.

Israel Chemicals Ltd (ICL) has taken over North Carolina-based Growers Holdings. Growers develops technology that collects and turns manual and machine-generated farm data into planting and fertilization recommendations, aiming to generate higher agricultural yields.

US-based Integer holdings has taken over Israel’s Inomec which plans to expand its team following the acquisition. Inomec’s makes laparoscopy systems, catheters and devices for brain and head surgery. Integer plans to turn Inomec’s offices into its Israeli R&D and sales office.