Netanya-based Start-Up SiSense, which develops Business Intellignece soultions, has completed a first fund-raising round totalling at $4 million from Genesis Partners, Opus Capital and private investor Eli Farkash.

SiSense was founded by Elad Israeli, Eldad Farkash (who acts as CTO and VP of Research and Development) and three others. With the completion of the fund-raising round, Gary Gannot of Genesis, Dan Avida of Opus and Eli Farkash will join the company’s board.

SiSense has developed a BI product which can be purchased online, allows quick implementation – within hours without any need for BI expertese – while using standard PC hardware.

Gannot, a partner at Genesis Partners, said that “complex BI solutions do not provide an answer to the dynamics which characterize today’s organizations. SiSense provides a solution that allows organizations to deal with the growing scopes of the data in their business and the increasing demands of data analysis. SiSense is bringing good news to the market, and Gensis is happy for the oppurtunity to invest in such an innovating company.”

Translated by Itai Rosenbaum

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AdsMarket was founded in 2007 by Ofer Druker, who serves as group CEO, Adi Orzel, who acts as CEO of daughter-company Extend and second to CEO, and Kfir Moyal which acts as director. It employs about 140 workers, 120 of which work in Israel. According to a declaration made, the company should complete 2010 with an $80 million sales cycle, as opposed to $60 million in 2009, $36 million in 2008 and $7 million in 2007. It operates mainly in the European market and recently stepped into the American market.

According to Osnat Ronen, “the Viola Group has marked the internet advertising and media field as one which is interesting for investments, due to the high growth it has shown in the last couple of years and the unique global position Israel has acquired in that field.”

“The Viola Group has chosen to invest in AdsMarket becuase of the growth potential it sees in the company and its ability to keep strengthening its leading position in the fields and markets in which it operates, while being profitable. This is mostly due to its professional, dynamic and experienced team leading the company, which has brought it to its impressive accomplishments and will continue to march it forward.

According to Ilan Shiloach, “We have found, in the Viola Group, experienced partners that will lead, together with us, the company and help us achieve our future goals. Viola’s investment in AdsMarket will support the company’s continued growth, and will act as a base for entry to new markets, chiefly the American one, through expanding our marketing array and recruiting new employees.”

Translated by Itai Rosembaum

The Tel-Aviv based start-up, founded by Ran Makavy, Barak Naveh, Lior Tal and Micha Berdichevsky allows users to run iPhone/Android-esque “smart applications” on different mobile devices, particularly those with a Java operating system. Among the applications offered are Twitter, Facebook and Picasa interfaces, news websites, RSS readers and similar applications for reading and sending data off web servers.

According to Shainski, Snaptu is enjoying a viral growth in user base from its founding, all due to its ability to provide lower generation mobile phones an experience which simulates newer smart phones.

Translated by Itai Rosenbaum

I believe most of you have heard of Start-Up Nation, the American best seller which describes the economic miracle Israel has caused in the world, and tells the story the local high-tech industry and start-ups.

Start-Up Nation, which was written by Dan Sensor and Saul Singer tries to explain how Israel has managed – with only a few million residents, without any natural resources, immense diplomatic difficulties, and a history rife with military problems – to start more successful start-ups than established financial empires such as China, Japan, Canada or the U.K.

When we began planning the SmartCamp Israel event, Start-Up Nation was always in the background. The immense success of the book in the US served to elevate the bar for us, and for the Israeli start-ups who will make it to the final.

The winning start-up is a representative of all of us in Ireland, and must try and defeat all the start-ups from all around the world, in the spirit of Start-Up Nation. We need to continue and show that our entrepreneurs are better than the English, the French and the rest of the world.

I am happy to announce that Saul Singer has decided to assist us, and agreed to speak in SmarCamp’s final event, to be held on June 24^th, at the IBM House in Petach Tikva.

In this special event, where the judges will witness short presentations by the fiva finalists, there will also be held a special lecture by Dr. Guruduth Banavar, VP and CTO of IBM’s Global Public Sector.

If you’re involved in the start-up field, and active in work in the Israeli start-up relam, or working with a promising Israeli start-up, you are hereby invited to register to the upcoming SmarCamp event, where you will get some networking done, experience the five finalists’ presentations and hear lectures by IBM Israel’s CEO Meir Neissenson, Dr. Banaar and Mr. Singer.

Translated by Itai Rosenbaum

IBM’s SmartCamp’s initial elimination phase is set to end this week, and over the next couple of weeks I will publish the 10 Israeli start-ups who were found fitting to move on to the next stage in the international competition.

To remind you, the competition’s semi-final will be held in Israel, on June 24^th, where 5 start-ups will be selected at those who most fit with IBM’s SmartPlanet Vision. The five finalists will earn a string of meetings with 25 Israeli mentors, and one of those will represent Israel in the global SmartCamp competition in November. There, the start-up will compete for the world title against the winning start-ups from Boston, London, Stockholm, San Francisco, Dublin and more.

We’ve already announced Panoramic Power as one of the select companies, and now I am proud to present to you Tel-Aviv’s Gnrgy, which develops hardware and software products for central self-management of the home and business electric grid.

The company offers “smart” outlets which allow savings in existing product’s energy use, charging stations for electric vehicles as well as software solutions for managing conventional and alternative energy sources. All this works as an additive solution to Smart Grid – the future electric grid proposed by the energy and infrastructure companies.

According to Gnrgy personnel, the company already offers five products, and that’s after being founded only six months ago. Today, the company employs over ten employees, and is conducting first activity in Israel, the US, China and Mexico. It’s already declared sale of thousands of units. Likewise, Gnrgy has announced field tests at several big electric companies around the world, and several large-scale organizations.

Gnrgy’s energy management grid is “plug and play” and is composed of a wireless grid management unit and a collection of smart outlets who communicate wirelessly. The network allows parallel management of all the local energy sources by both an end user and the electric companu.

According to Gnrgy, the system allows full shut down of all energy consumers during the night, or ad-hoc, use of alternative energy sources during heavy-load times, charging electric vehicles in preferred times, adjusting energy consumption programs based on the consumers habits, routing energy from various sources, real time analytics and more.

Translated by Itai Rosenbaum

India is continuing it’s take over of Israeli start-ups and technologies, and pretty soon the number of Israeli programers traveling to Bangalore will be greater the the number of ones heading to California.

About a month after the Indian communications start-up Tejas bought the Israeli Ethos Networks, Netania based start-up Olista has been bought by the Indian Connectiva. The sums involved in the deal were not revealed, but according to sources close to the deal it is a stock exchange deal rather than a monetary exit.

Olista was founded in 2003 by Eilon Tirosh and Oren Glanz, and was formerly known as Cognera. It specializes in analyzing the activities of cellular network client and was trying to find a way to improve its abilities and give the most appropriate commercial deals to each of its customers.

Translated by Itai Rosenbaum

The round was led by the Tenaya Capital venture capital fund, and the company’s current investors (who have already invested about $10 million in the company), Sequoia and Benchmark venture capital funds, also contributed.

Contendo’s CEO is Ronni Zehavi, a former executive at Commtouch. It’s solution package includes an acceleration system for dynamic and static content for web pages, a load balancing mechanism, system monitoring with real time reports and other applications. The company strives to battle against CDN-giant Akamai and Limelight Networks as well as against large cloud-based providers such as Amazon who are gaining more and more clientele which no longer need a private CDN solution. In the last several months, Contendo has reported new contracts with new clients, adding to its already impressive list of clients in the US and Europe which include Digg, Meebo, Payoneer and Adbrite.

Translated by Itai Rosenbaum

The Sense of Fashion website was founded by Daria Shualy and Yael Givon, and is a online sales center for independent fashion and accessory designers. If you happen to know of the American Do-It-Yourself website ETSY, then you are familiar with the idea. Sense of Fashion, however, has went above and beyond, and has taken the concept of the independent marketplace one step further. The fashion start-up strives to promote conversations and discussion regarding global indy fashion, and integrate a content portal, an aggregator of external, fashion-related content as well as an e-commerce platform that allows independent designers to promote and sell their products.

Sense of Fashion’s CEO is Ori Levy, founder of the start-up Trendum Buzzmetrix which was sold to Nielsen. Levy was the chief investor in the company prior to Gemini’s investment.

Translated by Itai Rosenbaum

Google Israel R&D center has recently announced that the company has purchased LabPixies, an Israeli start-up which develops personalized gadgets for iGoogle, Android and the iPhone. According to the company, this is a strategic purchase; the first of its kind for Google’s Israeli R&D center. The sum of purchase is estimated at $25 million dollars. LabPixies’ staff is set to join Google Israel’s R&D center.

LabPixies was founded by Oded Poncz, acting as the company’s VP of development, Ran Ben Yair, Udi Graff and Nir Tzemah. It has earned seed investments from a group of American angels represented by Yaron and Gilad Carni. The company has promoted cloud-based applications which allow thousands of developers to create applications for users all around the world, and has developed gadgets for iGoogle which provide users for relevant information such as news, weather, games and quick access to a personal e-mail.

Google spokespeople have said that the purchase is a “natural choice” for Google’s Israeli R&D center, and its people will assist in the efforts to continue and provide such applications for internet users around the world.

Ben Yair, LabPixies’ CEO, said that “we see the deal with Google as a golden opportunity for our team to integrate in a work environment which shares our passion – to supply millions of users with the ultimate online experience.”

Prof. Yossi Mattias, CEO of Google Israel’s R&D center, said that they “believe adding the LabPixies’ team to the center will allow us to continue and strengthen the internet platform, and turn it into a more attractive environment for developers and websurfers around the world.” He added, “Google believes in the Israeli innovation and creativity, and will strive to continue and cooperate with local start-ups and companies in the future.”

Translated by Itai Rosenbaum