Israel Active

As reported previously, Israel’s Eximo has developed a laser-catheter for treatment of peripheral artery disease (PAD). Eximo has just been acquired by US medical device company AngioDynamics for a minimum of $40 million. Development will continue in Israel.

Fascinating bio of Israeli cancer expert and entrepreneur Dr Aya Jakobovits. She founded Adicet Bio in 2014 and is still a Director. Co-founded Kite in 2010, selling it for $12 billion . Exec VP of Agensys ($0.5 billion exit in 2007). Principle scientist at Abgenix (exited for $2.2 billion in 2005).

As reported previously Israel’s Moovit has integrated its public transit app into Uber’s ride-sharing app. The partnership has now been extended into 15 additional cities globally, including Paris and San Francisco. Moovit operates in 3,000 cities and has over 500 million users.

Israeli content distributors Taboola and Outbrain make billions of dollars by attracting Internet users to the websites of large on-line companies. Now they realize that they can be even more successful by working together – so they are merging. From startups to grown-ups.

Israeli NGO ICON organized its sixth annual Innovation Week in Silicon Valley, California. It was attended by some 450 delegates from around the globe. Non-profit ICON bridges the Israeli and San Francisco tech startup communities.

The 18 Israeli bio-techs presenting at an event in Beverly Hills, California all benefited from the Merage Institute Leadership Programs for Israeli Life Science executives and the Elite Entrepreneur Organization - a global network of entrepreneurs.

Amazon has officially launched its Israeli website. Available only in English, it offers prices in shekels and a “ships locally” option. The Israeli retailers that already joined include cosmetics brand GA-DE, fashion retailers Crazy Line and Adika, Nintendo Israel, and skincare brand Sebocalm.

Israel’s Yamit develops and manufactures water purification systems for the industrial, municipal, and agriculture markets. Already selling to the Chinese market, Yamit has just agreed that The Toro Company of Bloomington MN will be its exclusive distributor in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico.

Israeli startup Convizit won Pitango Venture Capital’s TRIFECTA early-stage startup competition in New York and its $1 million first prize. Convizit’s Artificial Intelligence captures, names and categorizes every on-line interaction, to provide a company with complete behavioral data.

I’ve reported several times on Israeli compostable plastic packaging developer TIPA. It has just raised another $25 million of funds to enable TIPA to continue its growth into new territories, and to further develop its portfolio of unique packaging solutions.