OurCrowd Blog

OurCrowd Jobs Index Q4 2020

OurCrowd Jobs Index Q4 2020

Feb 23, 2021 | ,

Startups increase hiring despite lingering pandemic Job openings at OurCrowd companies in Israel jump to 400% in 6 months; increase 250% globallySoftware engineers are most in demandHybrid workplace/remote working expected to continue The OurCrowd Jobs Index is a quarterly report and data series tracking vacancies and hiring patterns at high-tech companies in Israel and abroad. All data is based on a survey and the Jobs section of the OurCrowd website, where more than 100 portfolio companies list current vacancies. (First publication: February 2021). EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Job openings triple Despite record-high unemployment in Israel and other western countries, high-tech startups are seeking to fill hundreds of job openings at the start of 2021. The number of vacancies at OurCrowd companies in Israel and abroad nearly tripled in H2 2020 to 912. In Israel, the number of job opportunities at OurCrowd companies increased 400% since May 2020, reaching 219 in January 2021. OurCrowd companies posted an average of 14 job openings each day during Q4 2020, up from 13 per day during Q3 and 10 per day during Q2, when uncertainty...

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Covid-busting nasal spray begins UK trials

Feb 1, 2021 | ,

Clinical trials are underway in the United Kingdom to test a nasal spray to kill the coronavirus in the nose before it can infect the rest of the body, potentially saving lives and slowing the pandemic. Developed by Vancouver-based SaNotize Research and Development Corp, the spray has proved more than 99% effective in lab testing, and is also undergoing clinical trials in Canada. “It will have a huge impact, especially on hospitalization,” said Dr. Isaac John, Deputy Director of Research & Development at Ashford and St Peter’s Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust in Surrey, England, where SaNOtize began clinical trials earlier this month. “I think it’s quite revolutionary in this sense because at the moment we don’t have anything else that we can use for the early symptoms at home,” he told Sam Holder at ITV News London. The spray is based on nitric oxide, a naturally-occurring molecule that in lab tests inactivated up to 99.9% of SARs-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, within two minutes, according to the company and the Institute for Antiviral Research at Utah State University.  In...

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Cyabra: IDF cyber-sleuths defend US government, celebrities and companies against disinformation

Cyabra: IDF cyber-sleuths defend US government, celebrities and companies against disinformation

Jan 31, 2021 | ,

As the coronavirus pandemic fuels a wave of online disinformation, governments, public personalities and companies are turning to technology to weed out the fake social media profiles and bad actors behind disinformation and deception. With millions more people spending time at home, often not going out or engaging in other activities, there is a growing captive audience hooked to social media feeds. They have become the prime source of disinformation, explained Dan Brahmy, co-founder and CEO of Israel-based startup Cyabra, an information verification company which uses artificial intelligence to track down fake social media profiles and expose online disinformation campaigns, working with clients that range from large public corporations to the US State Department. “These actors, they see an opportunity where people are staying at home,” Brahmy told an episode of SALT Talks.  “That represents an ocean of opportunity for good and for bad.  People are what they call ‘wired.’  They are wired constantly. They are consuming content and news and pieces of information much more broadly than they were previously.” Cyber defense Three out of Cyabra’s four founders...

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Investing in the Pandemic and the New Normal

Investing in the Pandemic and the New Normal

Nov 19, 2020 | ,

SALT Talks-OurCrowd Pandemic Venture Investment Series (Part 1) Watch the full episode here. Despite the economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic, venture capital is well placed to thrive as the world becomes increasingly digital and demands innovative solutions, according to one veteran Silicon Valley investor. Unlike previous economic crises, the pandemic offers a chance for venture capital to respond directly to the world’s most pressing needs, from healthcare to online banking to secure communications. The crisis “will be different because of the importance of venture capital,” said Steve Krausz, general partner at U.S. Venture Partners, a Menlo Park-based VC firm that backed companies like Checkpoint Software Technologies Ltd. and Box Inc.  “The digitalization of the world economy is going to be enormous.” Even before Covid-19, many VC-backed industries, including cloud computing, financial technology, and digital health, were growing, and driving some of the most dynamic changes in the economy. The virus, along with stay-at-home orders and social distancing requirements, has boosted those shifts, Krausz said, with consumers, businesses and healthcare providers relying even more on digital and online tools. “It has been...

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OURCROWD SUPPORTS UKRAINIAN ISRAELI INNOVATION SUMMIT 2020

OURCROWD SUPPORTS UKRAINIAN ISRAELI INNOVATION SUMMIT 2020

Oct 15, 2020 |

Jon Medved writes: The third Ukrainian Israeli Innovation Summit at the end of October will take place in a new format this year combining online and offline communication due to the international pandemic, and will focus on the challenges and opportunities created by the COVID-19 crisis. A major tech event, the UIIS was first launched in Kyiv in 2018 in order to establish cooperation between Israel and the Ukraine in the area of innovation. The conference, supported by both the Israeli and Ukrainian governments, will cover such topics as Ukrainian-Israeli cooperation during the pandemic, the transformation of the venture investing landscape, the creation of international access that can help to overcome the crisis, and the new normal of startup reality. OurCrowd is excited to participate in this year’s important summit, coming on the heels of our own Pandemic Innovation Conference this past June which featured Israeli startups and breakthrough technologies addressing everything from prevention and cure, to social distancing and food supply in the era of COVID-19. The first global event dedicated to pandemic investment, almost 7,500 people from...

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