Israel Active

(Thanks to Israel21c) 17-year-old Iddo Gino heads RapidPay, a year-old company providing a mobile payment platform for customers without a credit card.  Iddo studies at the Hebrew Reali School in Haifa and hopes to obtain a degree in computer science at the Open University next year.

The Israeli Government’s 2014 deficit was NIS 29.9 billion (2.8% of GDP) compared to its budget of NIS 31.1 billion.  This is despite an unplanned NIS 7 billion cost of fighting Operation Protective Edge.

(Thanks to Michelle) The Israel Venture Capital (IVC) Research Center reported that Israeli venture capital funds attracted $914 million in 2014, up 68 percent on 2013.  Israeli companies raised $2.1 billion with US Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) in 2014 - up from $360 million in 2013.

(Thanks to Stuart Palmer) The Israel pavilion entitled “Israel Innovation in India” opened at Vibrant Gujarat 2015, exhibiting the ongoing Indo-Israeli cooperation and showcasing advanced Israeli technologies in the fields of agriculture and homeland security.

Israel’s TabTable is one of the world’s top 10 mobile games publishers with operations in Israel, the U.S., China, Serbia, Macedonia, Bulgaria, and Ukraine.  TabTable has just bought Serbia’s Level Bit, developers of Genesis Rising - the biggest PC game hit by a Serbian company.

Software giant Microsoft is acquiring Israel’s Equivo for at least $150 million.  Equivio’s text analysis software summarizes and condenses lengthy documents.  Microsoft plans to integrate the product into its Office 365 package to boost user productivity.

(Thanks to Michelle) Israel’s Moovit has raised $50 million for its mobile app that lets riders plan trips and avoid obstacles on public transit systems in more than 500 cities around the world.

Israel’s PolyPid is preparing to launch on NASDAQ.  PolyPid, develops an antibiotic coating for safer bone repair.  It also has two candidate bone grafting materials and a unique PLEX (Polymer-Lipid Encapsulation MatriX) mechanism for delivering medicine into the body.

A new huge natural gas field has been discovered about 150 km off Israel's coast. Seismic analysis suggests that the Royee field contains an estimated 3.2 trillion cubic feet of gas, making it Israel’s third largest after Leviathan and Tamar.

(Thanks to Atid-EDI) Israel’s Viewbix turns a company’s youtube or vimeo videos into marketing applications.  It integrates interactive features such as action buttons and email forms into the video itself, allowing potential customers to communicate directly.  Viewbix has just raised $3million.