• Startup of the Week: Cymptom, best cybersecurity startup product
  • When Abraham’s children work together as partners
  • Surgical Theater helps separate conjoined twins
  • QuantLR’s ‘Iron Dome for data’
  • Corelight raises $75M in Round D funding
  • Volvo joins Foretellix’s $32M Series B
  • Innoviz: Winning by design
  • Puerto Rico taps TytoCare for elderly telehealth program
  • Stellar Cyber joins SonicWall to expand cyber defense package
  • Introductions
  • More than 3,500 high-tech jobs

Startup of the Week:
Cymptom: Best cybersecurity startup product 2021

As the corporate IT environment grows increasingly complex, with remote working continuing apace and hybrid becoming the new normal, while cloud services exponentially expand, companies are losing visibility into cybersecurity threats. Israel’s cybersecurity expertise has made it a global powerhouse, attracting 42% of all cyber investment in H1 2021. OurCrowd is investing in Cymptom, an early-stage Israeli startup that has developed risk assessment technology to identify cyberattack paths, warn companies which vulnerabilities are highest priority and suggest how to address them. Breach and attack simulation (BAS) is a relatively new cybersecurity approach that relies on automated and continuous simulations of attacks. BAS is easier than manual penetration testing and is continuously updated. Cymptom won Cybersecurity Startup of the Year Best Product in the 2021 Global InfoSec Awards. The company already has eight paying customers and 12 active PoC pilots underway, with many more in the pipeline. The company’s ARR is growing rapidly. The company’s President, Gilad Gans, previously served as the Managing Director for SAP Israel, and was the President of Stratasys North America. Investors participating in this round include Israeli cybersecurity guru and existing investor Pinchas Buchris, a former Director-General of the Israel Defense Ministry, and a former commander of the storied Unit 8200 of Israel Military Intelligence. This $8M Series A round will be used to grow sales, marketing and fund additional R&D.

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View from Abu Dhabi:
When Abraham’s children work together as partners


“For business executives in the Gulf like myself who have enjoyed friendships and business relationships with Israelis for many years, the Abraham Accords signed a year ago opened a new market,” writes Dr. Sabah al-Binali, GCC Venture Capital Partner and Head of the Gulf Region for OurCrowd. “Many Emiratis have spent time studying or working in the United States or Europe and our connections with Jewish and Israeli colleagues go back a long time. The Abraham Accords between the UAE and Israel gave us a chance to explore the opportunities arising from those relationships.” The UAE “has deep business connections in Africa and Southeast Asia and it makes sense for OurCrowd to use the UAE as a base from which to reach these regions. We aim to become a twin to OurCrowd HQ in Israel, providing the same services, the same investments, the same support to start-ups in Africa and the Eastern Hemisphere, mirroring the success of OurCrowd’s existing business in Israel, Europe and North America. We can also be a gateway to the wider world,” al-Binali writes in the Jerusalem Post 

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Surgical Theater helps separate conjoined twins

Advanced virtual reality technology from OurCrowd portfolio company Surgical Theater played a major role in the success of the separation of conjoined twins, a very rare operation, the Jerusalem Post reports. The twelve-hour procedure, the first of its kind performed in Israel, took place at the Soroka-University Medical Center in Beersheba on one-year-old twin girls who were born with their heads attached at the back. Using Surgical Theater’s virtual reality platform, the medical team conducted dozens of operation simulations before the actual surgery, enabling them to plan each step precisely. The procedure received global coverage from The New York Times, BBC and many others. It is only the twentieth time the operation has been performed anywhere in the world. Both girls are expected to make a full recovery and lead normal lives.

QuantLR’s ‘Iron Dome for data’

When Israel’s next astronaut takes off for the International Space Station later this year, he will take the latest cybersecurity equipment from OurCrowd portfolio company QuantLR, The Times of Israel reports. As part of his mission, astronaut Eytan Stibbe will demonstrate how the startup’s technology can help secure information traveling between satellites and networks on earth. QuantLR’s platform protects data in the coming age of supercomputers when current encryption codes will be easily deciphered and become obsolete. The company solves this problem with a method based on the principles of quantum mechanics developed by Albert Einstein more than 50 years ago. It has worked out a way to encrypt information in particles of light, which even the fastest computers cannot decode. “We are creating a new way to defend data,” says Shlomi Cohen, CEO and co-founder of QuantLR. “It’s like an Iron Dome for data,” he adds, referring to Israel’s well-known air-defense system.

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Top Tech News

Corelight raises $75M in Round D funding
Cybersecurity innovator and OurCrowd portfolio company Corelight raised a $75M Round D, TechCrunch reports. The investment nearly doubles the amount of funds raised by the company to $160M. Based in San Francisco, Corelight produces the first open network detection and response security system by leveraging Zeek, the industry’s leading open-source data platform. The company services some of the world’s largest financial institutions, retail and healthcare organizations, critical infrastructure providers and government agencies. “This latest investment is a powerful affirmation not only of the network detection and response category, but also of our open-source heritage, data-centric approach, and commitment to customer success,” says Brian Dye, CEO of Corelight. Meanwhile, former Symantec and Malwarebytes executive Clint Sand joined the company as Senior Vice President of Product.

Volvo joins Foretellix’s $32M Series B
Volvo is backing OurCrowd portfolio company and mobility industry pioneer Foretellix. Volvo participated in the company’s $32M Series B funding round, Globes reports. Foretellix has raised $50M so far for its platform which tests, verifies and validates automated driving systems (ADS). It uses a quantifiable approach to safety and hyper-automation to create and test all possible scenarios the systems may encounter. Fortellix is seeing increased demand for its platform and is now commercially engaged with dozens of the largest names in the automotive industry, including Volvo. “We believe that with Foretellix’s advanced automation tools and expertise, we can deploy future and current ADS,” says Martin Witt, VP and Head of Volvo Group Venture Capital, “we are impressed by Foretellix and we believe that together we can add considerable value to the development of the business in the future.”

 

Innoviz: Winning by design
Israeli lidar startup and OurCrowd portfolio company Innoviz is the smallest of the half-dozen laser sensor companies that have gone public this year, at least as measured by market capitalization. But “it boasts an accomplishment that most of its competitors lack – a design win for a production vehicle, specifically the upcoming BMW iNext series,” David Silver writes in Forbes. “A design win brings a small company like Innoviz into relationships with much larger automotive suppliers. Even though these relationships start small, they can grow to pay dividends in the future.”

Puerto Rico taps TytoCare for elderly telehealth program
The Puerto Rico Public Health Trust launched a Telemedicine for Elderly Adults (TMEA) program based on technology from Qure Ventures portfolio company TytoCare. The Trust will develop and implement telemedicine and telehealth services in long-term care facilities, homes for the elderly and nursing homes NimB reports. “Our priority is that elderly adults residing in care centers can have access to their doctors so that they do not neglect their health and can continue their treatments,” says Jorge M. Acevedo-Canbal, TMEA Director. “Covid-19 has changed the way we do medicine and now it will be necessary for medicine to be the one that reaches the patients.” TytoCare’s kit of hand-held examination devices includes a mobile application to connect physicians 24/7 and enable telemedicine and telehealth in care centers. The platform can help diagnose and treat an array of afflictions and conditions as well as providing physicians with high-quality digital heart and lung sounds, images of ears, throat and skin as well as measuring heart rate and body temperature.

Stellar Cyber joins SonicWall to expand cyber defense package
Cybersecurity pioneer and OurCrowd portfolio company Stellar Cyber joined the SonicWall SecureFirst Partner Program to integrate the company’s advanced threat detection and response platform, Helpnet Security reports. The combination of prevention, detection and response provides an overall platform for enterprises that want to stop many cyber attacks before they occur, while detecting and remediating complex threats. “SonicWall is a leader in cyberattack prevention and Stellar Cyber complements their solutions by automating threat detection and response,” says Steve Garrison, Vice President of Marketing at Stellar Cyber. “Through this partnership, the integration enables our resellers and go-to-market partners to deliver additional value to SonicWall customers by adding advanced threat detection and response capabilities to their existing investment.”  

Introductions

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