Author: OurCrowd

2013 was a multimillion-dollar year for leading Israeli agritech and medtech startups

 This post was written by Karen Kozek from The Trendlines Group,  Israel’s leading agritech and medtech incubator.    It’s that time again. A time to take a look back at Trendlines and our portfolio companies in 2013. Last year, our portfolio companies raised ~$20 million (~NIS 70 million). Among these companies were LapSpace, Leviticus Cardio and MitrAssist. As well, ApiFix completed its second funding round. Last year marked the first time our companies received investments from Chinese investors. Since 2007, our portfolio companies have raised $140 million (not including government funding). With our entrepreneur partners, we created 9 new companies in 2013. On the agritech side, BioFishency, FuturaGraft, Metabolic Robots, Saturas, and Valentis started up. And in medical, we established Arch2Fix, Omeq Medical, STS Medical, and VisiDome. Since 2007, Trendlines has started 52 medical and agricultural technology companies. Our portfolio now numbers 55, including 15 revenue-stage companies. We announced 2 exits last year, and both involved major global players: Teleflex acquired Innolap and Baxter acquired FlowSense. Awards & Recognition A number of our companies gained local and international recognition last year. Israel’s Office of the Chief Scientist named ApiFix and Sol Chip “Best Start-Ups.” Sol Chip also received the award for Best Technical Development of Energy Harvesting at IDTechEx 2013 IDTechEx. GreenSpense walked away two awards from the 2013 International Cleantech Open...

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Why Agritech is Israel’s Next Breakout Investment

This guest post was written by The Trendlines Group,  Israel’s leading agritech and medtech incubator, with a portfolio of over 40 companies.    In 1993, when Israel began to take its journey towards becoming the “Start-up Nation,” American immigrants Steve Rhodes and Todd Dollinger founded Trendlines International as a business development consultancy focused on assisting and guiding innovation-based Israeli companies in the complex U.S. market. Todd and Steve were among the trailblazers in Israel’s fledgling high-tech startup nationhood and moved to create and develop companies to improve the human condition. At a time of dwindling natural resources, climate change, increasing demand for high quality nutritious food and declining productivity growth, especially in high and middle income countries, such as the United States and China, global challenges have created compelling business opportunities in agritech.  Todd and Steve understood early that Israeli agritech had an world-wide edge in this field. Israel has new solutions to cope with the not-too-distant world food crises that are ready now for commercialization and adoption. New agritech start-ups, including advanced precision farming techniques, water optimization, robotics, sensor driven...

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The UnStoppables: Tapping Your Entrepreneurial Power [Book Review]

This guest post was written by Winslow Swart and originally published on The Rivard Report and on the author’s website. Winslow Swart is the Director of Strategic Partnerships at Geekdom and Chief Inspiration Officer at Winslow Consulting, with technology clients in San Antonio, Austin and San Diego and offices at Geekdom. Swart is the author of “The Resilient Leader“. @OrgDevSensei There is a rare and disruptive chain of genetic code in the human DNA – entrepreneur. Only half of those who possess this anomalistic signature are aware of its power, for the other half it remains to be discovered or never uncovered. Now one of San Antonio’s most celebrated entrepreneurs, Rackspace co-founder and chairman and Geekdom founder Graham Weston, has teamed up with friend, branding expert and author Bill Schley to spread their shared version of the entrepreneur’s gospel message. Attention, business school applicants: You might want to read The UnStoppables before enrolling and taking on all that college debt. Both Schley in the body of the book and Weston in the Foreword suggest the key to unlocking an individual’s entrepreneurial spirit is more likely to be discovered outside academic halls and right in the crucible of...

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