Here is the short film documenting the event, created by Yaron Yarkoni. Enjoy.

Five Israeli Telecom software companies and start-ups (

The presentations and meeting have been organized by IBM Israel’s Global Techonlogy Unit (GTU), which assits Israeli start-ups and promotes their business. Among the companies the start-ups will be meeting are CableVision, Telecom Personal, Telefonia Claro from Argentina and GVT, Net, Sky, Vivo Nextel, Embartel, Oi and Tim from Brazil.

The Israeli Telco envoy is part of IBM’s GTU, which works in Israel to assit Israeli companies in opening a wide variety of channels for global cooperation, expand IBM’s business framework by incorporating Israli technologies with IBM infrastructures.

Translated by Itai Rosenbaum

Finding by a survey conducted by the global accounting and advising firm

Looking ahead, 27% of surveyees said that beyond investing in their own country, they intend to increase investments in the Chinese market over the next five years. 16% said they intend to increase investments in the Indian Market while an additional 14% said that their investments will focus on the American market.

The survey revealed that Israel is no longer viewed as an attractive investment destination, with only 2% mentioning an investment in the Israeli market. It should be noted that countries who gained a simliar ranking are “High-Tech Superpower” Vietnam, whereas countries such as Switzerland, Germaby and Great Britain ranked higher than Israel.

Likewise, when asked if it is likely that VC partners will invest in funds outside their own country, over 50% of VC executives answered positively.

The high likelihood of such investments is evident in Israeli VC executives (70%). An inversion of this trend can be seen in the Chinese and Brazillian market, where only 23% and 32% (respectively) predicted an investment outside their own country.

Translated by Itai Rosenbaum

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

The

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 start-up Panoramic Power, which develops an innovative solution for monitoring electricity usage, was chosen to represent Israel in the finals of IBM’s SmartCamp. The descision was announce in a festive ceremony held last Thursday at the IBM House in Petach Tikva. The event, produced by People & Computers, saw five companies compete for the lucrative title.

The competition’s early stages saw over 70 start-ups compete, out of which, ten were chosen to move on to the next phase. The competition was aimed at Israeli companies founded less than three years ago, privately owned, who are developing a product meant to integrate in IBM’s Smarter Planet initiative. Local competitions such as this are being held in 6 other cities around the world: Boston, San Francisco, London, Paris, Dublin and Stockholm. A representative from each will arrive at Dublin in November for the final, where the winner will be awarded the title “World’s Smartest Start-Up”.

The judges in the Israeli competition were: Uzia Galil - one of the local high-tech industry’s forefathers, Yoram Tiz – CEO of Ernest & Young Israel, Rali Meridor – VP of the Israeli Post Service’s Information System, Oded Cohen – Manager of IBM’s Haifa-based Research Labs and Dan Yachin – Research Manager at IDC Israel.

Panoramic Power is developing a cheap solution for monitoring electricity usage on the individual circuit level. The system allows the owners and managers of commercial buildings to minimize electricity usage by 15-20% as well as predict and prevent malfunctions, overloads and electrical fires. An exact mapping of a building’s electrical system, which is enabled once the system is operational, will lead to a better management of the building, while incorporating energy cost in ERP systems. This solution, on which a patent request has been filed, utilizes cheap wireless sensors with a software offered as a service. The company employs 4 employees and operates out of the basement of one of its founders in Kidron. The company’s founders are Adi Shamir and David Almagor, who worked together in the semi-conductor field and communications, as well as Cory Selka, a former executive in Microsoft. Work on the system started in April ’09, on private funding by the partners, joined by a private investor.

When notified of their victory, Almagor said that he is “scared if [he] does not win the competition in Ireland, [he] will not be able to return to Israel.” The event was hosted by Peli HaNamer – president and founder of People & Computers, and was opening words were said by Gabi Tal – director at IBM Europe, which is responsible for maintaining contact with software developers.

Translated by Itai Rosenbaum

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

Last week saw the close of the selection phase for IBM’s SmartCamp competition, and the ten start-ups that will move on to the semi-finals have been selected. The semi-final will be held on June 24^th, and the five start-ups most fitting IBM’s SmartPlanet initiative will compete for the right to represent Israel in the finals in November.

Joining the already announced Gnrgy and Panoramic Power are the following 8 start-ups:

TruMedia specializes in analyzing videos of human crowds, and transmitting multimedia content which fit the analyzed footage. Applications can include displaying commercials which address a particular audience, marketing networks who identify specific parameters for potential buyers, or information kiosks.

Greenlet Technologies is a start-up which specializes in energy consumption solutions for electrical products. Greenlet’s solution, which makes use of hardware which easily plugs into the electrical grid and various electrical products, combines analysis features of the amount of energy consumed by each product, the ability to control electrical flow into that device and a web-based application and dedicated databases which can be used to determine the correct energy consumption profiles for each device.

The fifth entry in the Israeli semi-finals is Joliper, a start-up which sets out to turn the cell phone into a mobile security center, and provides the ability to connect, through the mobile device, to cameras located anywhere in the world, and view their feed, no matter where you are, all through the cellular carrier network.

Xsights, is a start-up which provides image analysis technology and prides itself on its ability to identify any static object a cell phone camera is pointed at. That is, assuming one of Xsights users has already taken a picture of that object before and created a database link between that object (such as a url for a cinema) and the object picture he or she inputer (such as the façade of that cinema).

Blabbers is a company which provides a service that adds an extra layer of data linked to standard web-page addresses. Users will be able to add annotations, charts and even dedicated applications that will be linked to specific web-pages, and these add-ons will be available to other Blabbers users who surf to the same URL.

The start-up Fooducate offers an iPhone application which scans bar-codes on food products, connects to an external database which contains alternative information to that which the manufacturer provides on the packaging. The information provided includes alternative suggestions, which, according to Fooducate personnel, provide a healthier alternative.

eViglio is a start-up which provides a platform for emergency information dispersion. eViglio specializes in mass messaging a large crowd with urgent messages, according to geographic and demographic sects, and make use of a plethora of communication methods such as SMS, the internet and other mass communication channels.

Lastly, Way Better, is dedicating its efforts to improve modern cities’ transportation. Through a unique algorithm, the entrepreneurs promise to analyze the need for passenger transport and the transportation options available in the field, and identify the most efficient, and cheapest options available at any given moment. The company’s products, which are aimed at large public and private organization, large transport services and private clients who require transport services, strive to locate efficient and cheap “rides” from one location to another, all the while finding the most suitable driver and vehicle for the situation at hand, and connecting them with the passanger who will make the best use of the route.

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 guests.

Translated by Itai Rosenbaum

Google has decided to host a series of developer events around the world, and the developers in Israel were selected to be among the first to be invited to the search giant’s

The Israeli DevFest event will be held on June 29^th, and will focus on web development technologies relating to Google Chrom – extensions and HTML5 applications.

The event will be opened by Brian Rakowski, Google Chrome’s chieft product manager, and Prof. Yossi Matias, CEO of the Israeli R&D center. Amongst the lecturers at the event, attendees will be able to hear Chrome development experts such as Pavel Feldman, Alex Russel and Ian Fette – all Google engineers and product managers, who presented lectures at Google’s last I/O convention in London.

A special segment will be dedicated towards webpage developers and will delve deep into topics relating to HTML5 compatibility and more. This series of lectures will be spearheaded by Jeremy Moskovich, a software engineer on the Chrome team from the Israeli R&D center who specializes in website compatability.

The event’s close will see a Hackthon led by Andrei Popescu, a senior engineer from Google’s London Chrome team, where participants will be able to get hands on experience working with Google’s new web-development technologies – so don’t forget your laptops.

The event is free to attend, but spots are limited – so sign up quickly.

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