insights

by Tzahi Hoffman

Mobile GPS navigation application developer Waze Inc. has raised $25 million in its second financing round from existing investors Magma Venture Partners, Vertex Venture Capital, and BlueRun Ventures. Qualcomm Ventures also participated in the round. Waze CTO Ehud Shabtai, president Uri Levine, and VP R&D Amir Shinar founded the company in 2008. The company raised $12 million in its first financing round. Waze’s smartphone navigation application can be downloaded to enable users to avoid traffic. The application can also tell the user how much time it will take to reach his destination, and whether there are traffic police along the route. A few days ago, Waze announced that it had reached 2.2 million users in all the countries where it operates. Waze’s executives call the company “the Wikipedia for drivers”. Its product is based on users’ content, which updates maps and warns of traffic congestion. The objective is to use the users’ updates and reports to enable a driver to find alternative routes to avoid traffic. http://www.globes.co.il/serveen/globes/docview.asp?did=1000606619&fid=1725

by Abigail Klein Leichman 

Thousands of entries poured in from entrepreneurs in 150 countries when General Electric announced its $200 million GE Ecomagination Challenge last July. Ten weeks later, judges announced five winners: Three from the United States and two from Israel. Each received $100,000, no strings attached, to develop their ideas for creating a smarter, cleaner, more efficient power grid and global energy transformation through open collaboration. The two Israeli awardees are GridON of Givatayim, whose “Keeper” fault-current limiter protects the electric grid from disruptions and power outages; and WinFlex of Kiryat Yam, whose wind turbine rotors made from light, flexible and inexpensive composite fabric, reduce installation costs by at least half. http://www.israel21c.org/201012068580/environment/israeli-companies-meet-the-ge-challenge

by Globes’ correspondent

NICE Systems Ltd. financial transaction monitoring software unit NICE Actimize said today that Russian financial regulators have deployed its system for market surveillance. The federal executive body regulating the Russian Federation’s financial markets, Federal Financial Markets Service (FFMS), has deployed NICE Actimize’s solution. According to NICE Actimize, the FFMS has already uncovered suspect activity from its implementation of the Actimize Market Surveillance solution, which includes compliance monitoring for equity, fixed income, futures and other securities and trading products. The FFMS currently monitors tens of millions of orders daily from the two primary Russian exchanges, the Moscow Interbank Currency Exchange (MICEX) and the Russian Trading System (RTS), involving some one million executions. The FFMS sought the Actimize Market Surveillance solution in its efforts to enforce a new Russian Federal Law to prevent abuse of inside information and market manipulation. The new law is expected to go into effect in January. The law is intended to reinforce market integrity and transparency in Russian financial markets. http://www.globes.co.il/serveen/globes/docview.asp?did=1000605359&fid=1725

by Globes’ correspondent

Google CEO Eric Schmidt has invested in Israeli mobile application start-up Any.Do Ltd. Genesis Partners, Blumberg Capital, and Schmidt’s Innovation Edeavors invested $1 million in Any.Do’s first financing round. Private investors, including Palantir Technologies co-founder and CEO Joe Lonsdale, also invested in the company. Any.Do also hired Facebook mobile manager Eric Chang and Twitter search location-based manager Elad Gil as advisors. Any.Do CEO Omer Perchik co-founded the company with two others in January 2010. Perchik served in the IDF computer unit. The founders developed the product in a garage. Perchik says that the company will use the proceeds from the financing round to complete development of the product and hire employees to work on the product’s software, algorithms, marketing, and user interface. Any.Do’s technology analyzes users’ intentions to help them carry out daily tasks in real time over their mobile telephones. The technology can be activated by voice ID by analyzing natural language and personalizing the services offered. Perchik says that the technology will change attitudes towards mobile telephones and further enhance the user’s experience. The product is due to reach market during 2011. http://www.globes.co.il/serveen/globes/docview.asp?did=1000604077&fid=1725