I’m testing the new version of Mozilla Firefox 3 beta 5 (you’ll be amazed how much difference there is with beta 1). Even though the speed is dramatically better, it is no excuse for having so many browser windows open. Therefore, just before I close all, below are a few of the links that have been keeping my browser busy:
Venture Capital Industry
* European Venture Investments have been holding steady. The equity kicker shares some stats and TechCrunch UK has a comprehensive list of deals.
* The National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) says that venture capital performance out-performed the public markets in Q4 2007, but warns that economic troubles might slow growth in 2008. Here’s the full release in pdf format.
* Sequoia Capital is seeking to shift strategy in a way that could potentially put it in competition with some of its existing investors.
* Israel Opportunity Investor posted an interesting interview with Carmel Sofer, a partner of Gemini Funds in Israel.
Miscellaneuous – Macro level news and useful links
* Economic stats on Israel for its sixtieth birthday, put together by IOI.
* Businessweek ranks Israel among the top 10 hotspots in innovation, as leader in technology and pharma. Globes extracted a nice piece from the report:
“Not blessed with oil reserves like many of its neighbors, Israel has constructed a powerful economy from the ground up with a pioneering tech sector, earning it the nickname “Silicon Wadi.” The country boasts the highest concentration of high-tech companies in the world outside of Silicon Valley, the most Nasdaq-listed companies outside North America, pioneering facilities such as the Weizmann Institute of Science and Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, and the world’s largest generic drug maker, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (Nasdaq: TEVA; TASE: TEVA). Israel also hosts research and design centers for Microsoft, IBM, and Intel – as well as Motorola, which first set up shop here back in 1964.”
* Always wanted to write in Hebrew but didn’t know how? Ouriel Oyahon posted this link to a virtual kewyord in Hebrew.
* Israel and Italy will collaborate on tech projects through a bi-national fund.
* Israel moves up in the EuroMoney ranking and placed among the top 40 economies.
* I gave an interview to a Finnish Magazine a couple of weeks ago and since then found out that there’s a lot in common between Finland and Israel.
* Leviathan Energy, an Israeli based energy company signed a $50 million agreement to provide clean electricity to India.
* Cellint, an Israeli startup, offers a system called TrafficSense that delivers travel times, traffic speeds and incident alerts in real-time by tracking anonymous cell phones.
* Great post on widgets and their importance during market recession by Michael Jones, CEO of Userplane. Read it.
Early Stage Israeli Startups
* SeeU.Tv lets users upload user generated content for mobile and offers a 10 cents revenue share for each download.
* How do most people search for jobs online in China? Through Meijob, an aggregator created by Israeli entrepreneurs Guy Rotberg and Barak Paz Tal. Check out the press release.
* TeleMessage is an Israeli startup that enables sending SMS, Voice and Fax Messages from a PC through a browser plugin for a small fee.
Venture Capital Deals in Israel
* TheMarker reported that Yuval Neeman, a former VP in Microsoft corp, started InstallFree, a company developing virtualization software that claims to save 35-45% in costs for its enterprise users.
* Technospin, a developer of small wind turbines for clean energy generation based in Israel and NY, announced a series A of $8 million, led by 21 Ventures, an angel fund headquartered in New York.
* Shlomo Kramer, one of the original founders of CheckPoint, closed $20 million series D for his security startup Imperva (founded in 2002). Imperva specializes application data security and is considered one of the leaders in the field. The company raised $54 million to date.
* Quark secured $27 million from Japanese investors, led by Mitzubishi and Taisho.Quark develops technology for Silencing RNA. The company attempted an IPO in 2007 but failed to raise $75 million.
I'm a former general partner at google ventures, head of Google for Entrepreneurs in Europe and founding head of Campus London, Google's first physical hub for startups.
I'm also the founder of Techbikers, a non-profit bringing together the startup ecosystem on cycling challenges in support of Room to Read. Since inception in 2012 we've built 11 schools and 50 libraries in the developing world.
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