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In the News: Announced: Winning consortium to lead Israeli FoodTech incubator…

June 17, 2019 by OurCrowd

Big announcement! After months of planning and presenting, we are proud to share that Tnuva, OurCrowd, Finistere Ventures, and Tempo Beverages have together been chosen by the Israel Innovation Authority to operate the new FoodTech incubator in the north of Israel! We are excited to be part of this initiative to establish Israel as a world leader in the FoodTech arena. In other news, OurCrowd is partnering with NOAH Advisors to promote startup investments in Europe. Congratulations to our Toronto-based portfolio company Wave, acquired by one of the world’s largest tax preparation companies, H&R Block; big win for Canadian tech.

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Pictured: Representatives from the FoodTech incubator consortium

Startup Nation and beyond

Insurance startup Lemonade expands into Europe with its launch in Germany.

Venture fund of ABN AMRO Bank takes stake in big data startup ThetaRay, after the bank used the company’s software to “stay ahead of threats, including detecting money laundering, human trafficking and terrorist financing.”

Yossi Boker, head of business development for the TSX/TSXV exchanges in Israel shares, “…if everything goes as planned, the list of Israeli companies on the TSX and the TSXV is going to increase significantly in the coming few weeks.” Toronto Stock Exchange woos firms as race for Israeli tech listings grows.

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How can we use data to fix the world?

June 12, 2019 by Naama Segal

Dr. Kira Radinsky can actually fix the world. At the 2019 OurCrowd Global Investor Summit, eBay’s Chief Scientist and Director of Data Science disclosed how her desire to understand causality between world events led her to develop the ultimate AI data system. Dr. Kira Radinsky’s AI system seems straight out of the future: her algorithm-based technique can not only reposition drugs, it can also predict global calamities in an effort to prevent them.

Data as a means to predict disease outbreaks and riots

Try to picture sorting through every tweet, web search, and article.

Ever.

Kira Radinsky built a system that can process all of that information. But she then wanted to go further. She recognised the power that may lie within data and asked herself, can the data processing system calculate the common denominator between dozens of ebola outbreaks? The system revealed that when people were looking for diamonds and gold, the carriers of Ebola – bats – would migrate. In fact, the latest Ebola outbreak first presented itself in a three year old child who ate uncooked bat bushmeat.

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Cybersecurity in A Connected World

June 6, 2019 by OurCrowd

From cars, to pacemakers, to ATMs, our networked world is becoming more and more vulnerable to cyber attacks. At the 2019 OurCrowd Global Summit, we heard from pioneers in the cybersecurity industry on how they are developing solutions that will keep us safe from financial and identity fraud, car hackings, and insurance risk in the “Cybersecurity in a Connected World” session.

Mitigating Security Risks for Cars of the Future

Michael Dick, CEO of C2A, discussed the necessity for cybersecurity solutions and what C2A does to mitigate security risks for cars of the future. C2A provides in-vehicle end-to-end cyber protection using a bespoke suite of cyber security solutions. C2A products are based on a deep knowledge of the automotive industry’s pains and requirements, and have been engineered from the ground-up with automotive manufacturers’ needs in mind, as well as yours.

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In the News: FoodTech: A hot dish on the Israeli innovation menu

June 3, 2019 by OurCrowd

We’ve had some big news this past week! Our portfolio company BOL Pharma filed its IPO prospectus in Toronto while data protection company Cognigo was acquired by Nasdaq-listed NetApp. FoodTech is now one of the hottest dishes on the Israeli innovation menu – we are excited to partner with Finistere Ventures, Tnuva and Tempo Beverages in the hopes of championing FoodTech and AgTech innovation in Israel.

Startup Nation and beyond

Now Intuition Robotics is leading a new industry: Will robots ever be better caretakers than humans?

Yulife, the emerging insurtech star raises $10M in funding.

What the future of farming will look like thanks to technology, featuring thoughts from Taranis CEO Ofir Schlam.

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Are buildings the next battlefront for a greener planet?

May 30, 2019 by Naama Segal

With a lot of attention being paid to potential global effects of climate change – from the Paris Agreement to the proposed Green New Deal in the US – what comes to mind are polluted cities, record-breaking temperatures, water scarcity and more. The issues sound big, scary and often – unsolvable.

But what if we take a moment to zone in on the micro-environments we are exposed to every day; for example… buildings.

That’s right – the everyday building is a battlefront for a greener planet. So says Harvard Professor Joseph Allen, addressing the crowd at the 2019 OurCrowd Global Investor Summit. Outdoor air pollution penetrates indoors and in reality, the majority of our exposure to outdoor air pollution can actually occur when we are inside a building. Allen explained that we spend 90% of our time indoors which means if we live until we are 80, we’ll have spent 72 years living indoors! That being said, the person who manages your building essentially has a bigger impact on your health than your doctor.

Did you know? An early version of a Harvard Business School study even reveals that an optimized indoor environment positively affects our decision-making abilities.

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In the News: Big news for Israel’s mobility sector

May 27, 2019 by OurCrowd

Good news for the Jerusalem tech ecosystem, ranked as 8th best for life science startups, a great start for a global city ranking! IPO news: Israeli startup Fiverr files to go public. Why are Singapore banks and businesses working with AI startups? Read up on Israeli tech’s Singapore connection, featuring OurCrowd. Big news for Israel’s mobility sector as autonomous vehicle startup Foretellix partners with software company Metamoto, Ford will open an innovation center, and we are less than a month away from EcoMotion week – see more details and a discount code below.

Startup Nation and beyond

Ford to open an innovation center in Israel, bringing delegation to scout for tech in artificial intelligence, autonomous driving, and cybersecurity.

Mossad expands scope of investment arm, “calling on startups from fintech, robotics, data sciences and big data, among others, to apply for funding”.

Check out this interview where I share perspectives on the Israeli tech scene and secrets to OurCrowd’s success.

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Class is In Session: Daniel Kahneman’s Lesson on the Art & Science of Decision-making

May 22, 2019 by OurCrowd

At the 2019 OurCrowd Global Investor Summit, Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman revealed what drives our choices in business, science, and life during an insightful Q&A. The pioneer in behavioral economics shared with a captivated audience that intuition can be marvellous but it is often wrong (and unfortunately isn’t helpful when it comes to buying and selling stocks). Kahneman advised that one should delay his intuition until he has all the information. He further shared that to reach big successes one must be “crazily optimistic” or even delusional, as success does not come without risk.

Watch the full Q&A with Professor Daniel Kahneman linked below as well as five top quotes from both the Summit as well as his international bestseller, Thinking, Fast and Slow, where Kahneman unveils what drives the way we think:

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