Bitesize: A Low Calorie News Dose

While Israel’s leaders are talking politics in Annapolis, the Israeli market continues in his stride. Some quick links as I get ready for the weekend:

1. Israel’s HealOr raises $8M- Israeli dermatological startup HealOr has raised $8MM from a group of investors led by Pitango Venture Capital. HealOr plans to use the round to develop HO/O3/O3 for the treatment of diabetic foot ulcers and venous leg ulcers. The drug recently completed Phase I safety trials successfully with no significant side effects. HealOr was co-founded in 2002 by Dr. Tamar Tennenbaum, a researcher in skin physiology and pathology at Bar Ilan University, and Prof. Sampson Sanford [via Globes]

2. Daniel Cohen, an Israeli VC from Gemini compares Sand Hill Road to Hamenofim Street in Israel. The conclusion: the Israeli VC scene is more fun, the valley is where the money’s at.

3. The Rockville based Zitelman Group to invest $20M in Israeli startups. The group has already invested $3.5M in ebizmobility , Redmatch, Flexicath, Lifebond and the clean-tech incubator. These days the Zitelman group is negotiating an investment with Human Monitoring. The group only invests in small portions of about 100K and it is looking for new portfolio companies. [via and via]

4. Globes published an interview with the founders of Pitango, Israel’s largest VC fund. Rami Kalish and Chemi Peres (the son of Israel’s president) talk about diversification and the ups and downs of the Israeli venture capital industry.

5.

Jerusalem Global Ventures to raise a new $200M fund. The original fund, started by Shlomo Kalish in 1994, manages $116. The new, bigger fund will focus on mature Israeli high tech companies that are expected to IPO over the course of three years. JGV is raising capital after two good years that include the sales of Unicorn to IBM Corporation, sale of Kashya to EMC Corporation and the IPO of Mellanox Technologies Ltd. [via]

6.

Reuters reports that Israel’s InSightec Ltd raised $30 million. Insightec, developer of non invasive ultrasound technology, raised $30 million in a private funding round raised by GE Capital Equity Holdings, Elbit Imaging Ltd and MediTech Advisors LLC, as well as directors and managers of the company. Started in 1999, InSightec had previously raised $85 million in various funding rounds. [via and PE Hub]

7.

The Standard & Poor’s international credit rating agency upgraded Israel’s credit rating to “A” and gave the economy a positive outlook. Finance Minister Roni Bar-On called the upgrade a “certificate of honor” for the economy and the government’s economic policy. [via]

8.

Israel based Advasense raised $6M from CIDC, a Taiwan-based venture capital fund. Advasense is a fabless semiconductor company focusing on image sensors for mobile devices. The sensors developed by Advasense have ten times the light sensitivity of ordinary image sensors, and include a mechanism for stabilizing pictures against vibrations. Advasense says the sensors make the picture quality of cellphone cameras the equal of regular digital cameras. Founded in 2004, Advasense is led by CEO Naftaly Sharir and has a headcount of 40. [via]

9. Medingo raises $27M to develop an insulin patch. The round was jointly led by Elron Electronic Industries ($22M) and US vc fund Radius Ventures. In a statement, Elron’s CEO Doron Birger said that “Medingo is now completing its first significant round of financing at a post-money valuation of approximately $82m”. [via]

10.

Mobile Web – so close yet so far. The New York times article reports about InfoGIN, an Israeli company whose product automatically adapts Web pages to work on cellphones. [via]

This should be plenty of reading for the weekend. If you want to receive the VC Cafe’s updates to your inbox or RSS reader, take a moment to subscribe to our feed.