Search Results for: 8 crazy nights

8 Israeli Tech Trends, 8 Crazy Nights 2014: Online Lending (1/8)

8 Israeli Tech Trends, 8 Crazy Nights 2014: Online Lending (1/8)

Dec 17, 2014 | , ,

As Israel observes Hanukkah – a celebration of the light among the darkness – it’s time to highlight the tech trends creating sparks within the Startup Nation. Note, these trends are based on our deal flow – what our team sees on the ground. Trend 1/8: Online Lending How a trend is born:  According to estimates, lending institutions generate $870+ billion each year in fees and interest from over $3.2 trillion in lending. The lending industry is larger than the automobile and airline industries combined! Here’s the issue: the Global Financial Crisis of 2008-2009, when consumers and small businesses needed access to credit more than ever, many banks stopped offering loans and lines of credit. The combination of this liquidity crunch, new bank regulations and increased dissatisfaction with the quality and cost of banking services resulted in significant friction in the traditional lending industry and set the stage for the emergence of one of the hottest sectors of innovation in the world today: alternative finance and online lending. Who’s who:  In Israel, not only are companies aiming to build the online lending...

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High-Tech Hanukkah: 8 Israeli tech trends for 8 crazy nights

High-Tech Hanukkah: 8 Israeli tech trends for 8 crazy nights

Dec 2, 2013 | , , ,

We’re celebrating Hanukkah in Israel right now, a time for latke eating, dreidel spinning and candle lighting festivities. There is a lot to celebrate (and be thankful for — Thanksgivukkah FTW!) in startup land this year. Last year OurCrowd took the opportunity to highlighted some of the tech trends seen in the Startup Nation in a series of blog posts 8 Israeli Tech Trends for 8 Crazy Nights. Since 2013 turned out to be such a successful year, we thought it would be a good time to look back at last years trends and see how far they’ve come and what we have to look forward to in the future. So, Happy Hanukkah and enjoy! 8 Israeli tech trends for 8 crazy nights Trend 1: Social Driving Interestingly, many of the most popular driving apps have been developed in Israel. The solutions tend to cluster around overlaying social with driving data to aid navigation and parking. Check out the trend here. Trend 2: The Quantified Self This trend reflects how the tie-in between hardware and the smartphone is getting tighter and tighter. People are getting more...

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8 Israeli tech trends for 8 crazy nights: Payments (8/8)

8 Israeli tech trends for 8 crazy nights: Payments (8/8)

Dec 17, 2012 |

We’re celebrating Hanukah in Israel right now and given all the fun and festivities going on, we thought it would be a good time to look back over the past few months and highlight some of the tech trends we’re seeing in startup land in the Startup Nation. As a caveat, these trends are based upon our deal flow – what we’re seeing on the ground. So, Happy Hanukah and enjoy. >>Read about all the top Israel technology trends this holiday season<< :::::::::::::Payments::::::::::::: The problem: Payments are moving away from traditional point-of-purchase and onto mobile devices, into the cloud, and within software. The technology and transactional ecosystem have to migrate from hardware to software (or at least a mix of the two). Solutions: Israeli companies aren’t focused on taking on core merchant payments the way a Square is but are more focused on niche parts of the market. Digimo: While lots of new payment players are basing their solutions on new hardware  — like terminals or NFC — Digimo uses existing payment infrastructure and enables mobile payments with an interesting twist...

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8 Israeli tech trends for 8 crazy nights: Social video (7/8)

8 Israeli tech trends for 8 crazy nights: Social video (7/8)

Dec 16, 2012 |

We’re celebrating Hanukah in Israel right now and given all the fun and festivities going on, we thought it would be a good time to look back over the past few months and highlight some of the tech trends we’re seeing in startup land in the Startup Nation. As a caveat, these trends are based upon our deal flow – what we’re seeing on the ground. So, Happy Hanukah and enjoy. The Problem: The internet has made us into creators, and has let the world express themselves in ways that people could never even dream about years ago. While it is easy to share pictures and text, it is significantly harder to create, publish, and share video content through social media and the internet as a whole. The Solutions:  Vtago– Vtago has revolutionized the way people share videos with their friends by allowing the user to tag friends by using faces extracted from the video itself and connecting them with the user’s friends. In addition, each friend will get a personalized video showing only the parts of the video...

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8 Israeli tech trends for 8 crazy nights: Small business automation (6/8)

8 Israeli tech trends for 8 crazy nights: Small business automation (6/8)

Dec 15, 2012 |

We’re celebrating Hanukah in Israel right now and given all the fun and festivities going on, we thought it would be a good time to look back over the past few months and highlight some of the tech trends we’re seeing in startup land in the Startup Nation. As a caveat, these trends are based upon our deal flow – what we’re seeing on the ground. So, Happy Hanukah and enjoy. >>Read about all the top Israel technology trends this holiday season<< :::::::Small Business Automation:::::::: The problem: Small businesses have small marketing budgets, so they can’t afford full-service agency marketing support. They typically also lack the time and kn0w-how to run professional marketing campaigns. The solutions: Appforma: Like Wildfire Interactive (acquired by Google) before it, Appforma provides easy-to-use tools for small business to begin tapping Facebook for new leads using giveaways, contests, and coupons. The Israeli startup has already inked a partnership with leading small business website company, Wix. Gigya: Gigya is a pretty ubiquitous technology provider when it comes to social logins — the ability for websites to allow users to...

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