Bill Gates hails Tevel’s fruit-picking flying robots + Feb 1 Online: Israel’s resilient tech

A weekly selection of news and investment opportunities from OurCrowd, the global venture investing platform

Startup of the Week

CytoReason: AI-powered drug development trusted by Pfizer, Sanofi?

The development of new pharmaceuticals is a multibillion-dollar, multiyear process with a high rate of failure. Driven by long timelines and associated high costs in bringing new therapies to market, it often results in high prices for patients and providers. Israeli MedTech startup CytoReason helps pharma and biotech companies significantly cut the time and resources needed to develop new drugs. Its AI-powered platform of computational disease models draws upon vast amounts of proprietary molecular and clinical data to simulate diseases on the cellular level, allowing researchers and executives to make data-driven decisions across the drug development lifecycle faster than ever before. CytoReason has signed multimillion-dollar, multiyear collaborations with Pfizer and Sanofi, and successfully finalized its collaboration with Poolbeg Pharma by identifying multiple targets for the treatment of severe influenza. OurCrowd has an allocation in CytoReason’s current funding round. Further details are available under NDA.

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Feb. 1 Online: Sustaining Israel’s tech economy in wartime

The Israel Resilience Fund is a pioneering initiative we created to generate investment for Israeli startups impacted by the war with Hamas and Hezbollah while delivering robust financial returns. In December, the fund announced it had raised $13M in commitments toward its $50M target within just a few weeks and made the first 8 investments, with more than double in process. Join me on Feb. 1 online for an opportunity to ask questions of the Advisory Board and fund managers, and hear from co-investors. Jeff Kupietzky, tech entrepreneur and Operating Partner of the Israel Resilience Fund, will host Ron Fisher, Senior Advisor at SoftBank, Noam Kaiser, Former Partner at Intel Capital, and myself for an in-depth discussion. Investors will also hear from Eran Heffetz, the CEO of Bites, a recipient startup of the fund, describing what it’s like to run a tech company in Israel in the current environment.

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Bill Gates hails Tevel’s fruit-picking flying robots

Bill Gates hails our portfolio company Tevel as one of the companies around the world “at the forefront of robotics technology, working to usher in a robotics revolution.” In his Gates Notes blog, he writes: “For farmers in some rich countries, around 40 percent of costs can come from labor – with workers spending entire days out in the hot sun and then stopping at night. But given the labor shortage in agriculture, farms often have to throw away fruit that’s not harvested in time. That’s why Tevel, founded in Tel Aviv, has created flying autonomous robots that can scan tree canopies and pick ripe apples and stone fruits around the clock, while simultaneously collecting comprehensive harvesting data in real time.”?

Carrar awarded R&D grant for EV battery tech

Amid news from the US of thousands of electric vehicles unable to recharge batteries in cold weather, our mobility pioneer Carrar received a grant from the Israel Innovation Authority (IIA) for its thermal management technology that keeps EV batteries at a constant temperature extending battery life, reducing charging time and improving vehicle safety. “The grant is a decisive vote of confidence by the IIA, not just in Carrar’s technology but also in its potential to penetrate and change the EV market, making it safer, more cost-efficient and sustainable,” says CEO Avinoam Rubinstein. “We are now in the exciting stage of moving our solution from R&D to scalable manufacturing, a major step in our road map towards a commercial-grade product offering for the automotive market.” Carrar is currently funding on the OurCrowd platform.

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BioCatch grows ARR 49% to $100M in record quarter?

OurCrowd portfolio company BioCatch, the global leader in using behavioral biometric intelligence to uncover digital fraud and money laundering, grew its ARR 49% YOY to $100M in Q4 2023 with record sales. BioCatch welcomed 78 new customers and significantly expanded relationships with existing ones in 2023, with 126% net dollar retention. “We focused on our customers' success, on proving the differentiation and value of our technology to our prospects and partners, and on strengthening our world-class operational teams across our business,” says Gadi Mazor, CEO of BioCatch, projecting EBITDA profitability in 2024.

Neolithics launches portable produce inspection system

OurCrowd portfolio company Neolithics launched a portable version of its produce inspection system, Carl Collen reports in Fruitnet. The Neolithics Light is an AI-powered platform that uses hyperspectral optics to automatically inspect fruits and vegetables for ripeness, nutrition levels, sweetness and other indicators. “We’re going to reduce food loss and ensure food quality and safety,” says CEO Amir Adamov. “With manual inspection, more than 8% of each crop is destroyed. Thirty-five percent of crops are lost due to transport and shelf-life issues. With the speed and accuracy of our platform, most of those losses can disappear.”

Proofpoint, Stellar Cyber form strategic alliance to defend against email cyberattacks?

Enterprise cybersecurity firm Proofpoint and our portfolio company Stellar Cyber formed a strategic alliance to help companies fend off cyberattacks that come through inboxes. The two will integrate their technologies to provide clients with swift email investigations and real-time response actions to email-driven attacks. “Email attacks remain the Number One entry point into an organization, and the level of sophistication of these attacks continues to grow exponentially,” says D.J. Long, Vice President, Strategic Alliances & Business Development at Proofpoint. “We’re thrilled to work with Stellar Cyber on this strategic alliance to help customers protect against advanced email-based threats and unify their cybersecurity defense.”

Freightos reaches 1M transactions in 2023

OurCrowd portfolio company Freightos (NASDAQ: CRGO) reached 1M transactions across its digital freight platform in 2023. The company’s WebCargo system is the leading cargo pricing, booking and sales platform connecting thousands of global freight forwarders and carriers – including some of the world's largest airlines and ocean liners – for increased efficiency and sales. “One million means we have reached real scale, and that we are a force in the industry. But also not to overstate it – this is a small percentage of the total industry and there is still a way to go,” says CEO Zvi Schreiber.?

Snowflake integrates data.world tech for data trust

Cloud-based computing giant Snowflake (NYSE: SNOW) is integrating technology from our data catalog platform company data.world to improve customer data trust. The companies’ newly launched data.world Snowflake Collector system allows data teams to measure data quality across their organizations on demand, unifying data quality and analytics. “Our collaboration with data.world enables data teams and decision-makers to verify and trust their data’s quality to use in mission-critical applications and analytics across their business,” says Jeff Hollan, Director, Product Management at Snowflake.

?nsect granted US approval to commercialize mealworm proteins for dog food?

Alternative protein pioneer ?nsect has been granted authorization by the Association of American Feed Control Officials to use defatted mealworm proteins in dog nutrition. It is the first time mealworm-based ingredients for pet foods have been approved in the US. The authorization opens prospects for ?nsect’s pet food brand Spr?ng, which uses mealworm proteins as an alternative to animal proteins traditionally used in pet food that have a large environmental footprint.?

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More than 3,100 high-tech jobs worldwide

Looking for a job? You may find your next adventure with an OurCrowd portfolio company on our?Portfolio Jobs?page. We have more than 3,100 vacancies at our portfolio companies around the world, seeking skilled staff at all levels from coders to bookkeepers, data scientists to dealmakers. Click on the link and start looking for the next step in your high-tech journey.

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About this Newsletter

Startup Beat?is a weekly selection of news and investment opportunities from?OurCrowd, the global venture investing platform.

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OurCrowd is a global venture investing platform. To date we have more than $2.3 billion in commitments, 230,000 registered investors, 440 portfolio companies, 56 venture funds and 63 exits.

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