israel

I couldn't escape the irony of spending Wednesday morning on Microsoft's Silicon Valley campus, listening to show-and-tell presentations from 15 Israeli tech start-ups.

While Microsoft is trying to buy its way into becoming a more serious challenger to Google, here was a collection of very talented bootstrap operations trying to turn their respective "aha" moments into real businesses.

What with global stock markets going from bad to worse nearly every day, this was a tonic reminder that some incredibly creative development work continues apace regardless of the manic gyrations on Wall Street.

The sessions were organized … Read more

MOUNTAIN VIEW--Israel is brimming with technology upstarts that want what Silicon Valley has--venture money, partnerships, and a bridge to the rest of the world.

On Wednesday, 15 Israeli companies showed off their technology to a group of investors and tech leaders here at Microsoft's offices. The conference, called IsraelWebTour 2008, was like a Demo for Israeli companies, but with potentially more upside for a start-up looking for influential ties.

"I love it. This gives us a lot of first-time introductions to major players like eBay, Microsoft, Google, and Ask.com," said Tai Schwartz, co-founder and CEO of … Read more

If you'd like to get a feel for cutting-edge water technologies, go to Israel, a densely populated country that gets only four to six inches of rain a year.

Stanford Venture Capital Holdings on Monday said it has committed $10 million to Israel-based AquAgro Fund, a division of Gaon Agro Industries.

Israeli newspaper Globes reported Tuesday that the AquAgro Fund made its first move, a $4 million investment in Advanced Desalination Technologies.

The AquAgro fund plans to invest in different technologies, including filtering and water recycling, as well as computerized irrigation systems.

Water scarcity is often cited as a … Read more

Correction 10:35 a.m. PST: This blog initially misidentified the prime minister of Israel. He is Ehud Olmert. It also misidentified the person whose speech can be found on the Project Better Place Web site--it is by Shai Agassi--and as such an earlier version of this post also incorrectly attributed a quote from that speech.

Renault-Nissan, the government of Israel, and an electric charging station start-up founded by Shai Agassi are mounting an effort to make electric cars part of ordinary life in Israel in the next decade.

Project Better Place, Agassi's organization, will try to build 500,… Read more

HALF MOON BAY, Calif.--Homesick entrepreneurs longing to return to China or Europe may find the motherland is offering more than a warm embrace: funding by eager investors.

China's stock market has climbed fivefold over the past two years, and efforts are under way to create an emerging market that would cater to younger companies.

"The China market has turned over five times, so it's very, very hot. But there've only been a handful of local companies that have done an IPO," said Kuantai Yeh, managing director of Intel Capital and a panelist Friday at … Read more

Whether your pilgrimage tour makes it to Bethlehem or ends up as Mediterranean fish bait may all depend on a credit-card-size keypad designed to prevent hijacked airliners from entering Israeli airspace.

Starting next year, Israel will require all airlines flying into its airports to use a new Security Code System device designed to prevent a 9/11-style attack by identifying commandeered planes before they enter the country's airspace, Reuters reported last week.

Elbit Systems, the company that developed the device, declined to go into technological and procedural detail. But judging by the keypad, it's possible that the pilot … Read more

Fraud Sciences, which has developed systems that cut down on credit card fraud, has received $11 million in a new round of funding, according to VentureBeat. The lead investor was Redpoint Ventures.

The company has devised what it calls the SpotLight transaction verification system, which essentially confirms that the customer trying to use a credit card number on a computer is the owner of the credit card. The system cuts down on fraudulent transactions, but also lets merchants accept transactions that seem to be a bit suspicious, but in fact are genuine (i.e. a husband on an international business … Read more

"Mother of Satan"--that's what bomb makers call peroxide-based explosives like triacetone triperoxide (TATP), which are easy to make and hard to detect. But a new pen-shaped detector doodad offers hope for those doing time in airport security lines.

The Peroxide Explosives Tester, or PET, by Acro is supposed to help security personnel quickly and accurately identify peroxide-based explosives, from diacetone diperoxide and hexam-methalene-triperoxidediamine to the notorious TATP, a component allegedly used by Mr. Goofy in the shoe bomb he tried to detonate on a trans-Atlantic flight in 2001.

Acro announced this month that it had licensed … Read more

Not everyone hates cellulite. Venture capitalists and medical device entrepreneurs like it.

Cellutions has raised $7 million from Versant Ventures, SV Life Sciences, Accuitive Medical Ventures and Carlyle Venture Partners to help it fund human testing for a medical device that smoothes out that lumpy cellulite skin texture that some people get, according to VentureWire.

The machine produced by Cellutions costs $69,000. Doctors buy it, and patients generally have to pay for this kind of aesthetic treatment out of pocket. Paying for treatment yourself, of course, means that if a doctor says "I have a Cellu-tion for you&… Read more