1. OrCam, which makes a wearable assistive technology device for the visually impaired,raised $30.4M in funding, bringing its valuation to $1B --a new Israeli unicorn. The round was led by Israeli institutional investors Clal Insurance Enterprises Holdings Ltd. and Meitav Dash Provident Funds and Pension Ltd. It’s unusual for institutional investors in Israel to finance startups, so this is also noteworthy. OrCam was founded by Amnon Shashua and Ziv Aviram, who also founded MobilEye, acquired by Intel last year for $15B, the biggest exit in Israeli business history. Orcam is important because it allows people who cannot see -- or cannot see well-- to engage the world visually through audio, turning sight into sound.  According to the World Health Organization, 253 million people, more than 3 percent of the world’s population, are blind or visually impaired (WHO).

2. Moovit, a real-time transportation and mobility app raised $50M led by Intel Capital. It’s Intel’s second big move in Israeli mobility tech, after recently putting down $15 Big Ones [Billion] on Jerusalem’s Mobileye. The latter’s Co-Founder and CEO Prof. Amnon Shashua joins Moovit’s Board, which is good news for Moovit, and good news for the 120 million people who use it around the world (80 countries and 2,000 cities), and in 46 languages. Uri Levine, Founder and Former President of Waze, is also a board member. Both Shashua and Levine represent an interesting possibility: automated public transport. Investors from previous rounds include Ashton Kutcher and talent manager Guy Oseary’s venture capital firm, Sound Ventures.

3. AI and robotics startup CommonSense Robotics raised $20M in Series A funding. The round was led by Playground Global, with participation from previous investors Aleph VC and Eric Schmidt’s Innovation Endeavors. The company, which has raised $26 million to date, is building an on-demand supply chain that allows retailers to offer one-hour delivery service to their online customers. One way this company could be important is that it hopefully reduces retail costs, while giving traditional retailers a leg up in their battle against Amazon.

4. Cyber-security co Morphisec raised $12M in a Round B, including Orange Digital Ventures, as well as existing investors Jerusalem Venture Partners, General Electric and Deutsche Telekom --all major league corporate venture capital firms (two of those are the venture arms of big telecoms incumbents). Morphisec develops products that protect end users, mostly enterprise and governments, by identifying and removing viruses, and alerts against harmful apps. Morphisec also provides three scholarships for female students enrolled or enrolling in cybersecurity-related studies, to encourage young women to explore a career in this field. This is important as women are severely underrepresented in cybersecurity and the tech industry as a whole.  The program was initiated by Morphisec’s VP of Product Netta Schmeidler.

5. Home network security startup SAM Seamless Networks raised $3.5M in a Seed round from Blumberg Capital. SAM Seamless Networks offers a solution designed to protect connected homes. The company’s software uses the home router to protect the home’s connected devices from hacking. This company shows how increasingly important it is becoming to protect our homes from cyber attacks, including ransomware attacks that spy on our private lives through home TVs, cameras, and audio devices. The startup was found by Nati Hazut and Sivan Rauscher, graduates of the Israeli army’s elite 8200 intelligence unit (Israel’s NSA). The company's advisors include Nadav Zafrir, a former commanding officer of 8200, and Israel Grimberg and Liran Grinberg, also former 8200 leaders, who are also the founders of Team8, a leading Israeli cybersecurity company creation platform.

6. Healthcare data analysis co MDClone raised $10M in Round A. MDClone has developed a system for scrambling private medical data so that researchers can conduct research on it without leaking personal details. This is important for ensuring patient confidentiality is key to building trust into the booming digital health industry and allowing accredited institutions to conduct research safely. MDClone’s solution is generating “synthetic data”—datasets combining real and fictitious patients, allowing researchers to conduct tests without compromising the patient’s identity. The idea comes from methods used in cybersecurity.

Courtesy: https://www.forbes.com/sites/startupnationcentral/2018/03/05/six-recently-funded-israeli-startups-you-need-to-know/#eff6d51cbf67