A Corporate Travel Startup That Raised a $250 Million Round Is This Week’s Top Winner
CTech’s Editor Elihay Vidal chooses the week’s top winners—and biggest losers
10:0428.06.19
This week’s winners are:
TripActions founders Ariel Cohen (left) and Ilan Twig. Photo: PR
Corporate travel management service TripActions, for raising a $250 million series D roundat according to a $4 Billion valuation. Founded in 2015 by Israeli-expats Ariel Cohen and Ilan Twig, TripActions develops a business travel management service aimed at saving companies money on their employees’ work-related trips. The company has raised over $480 million to date. Read more
TripActions founders Ariel Cohen (left) and Ilan Twig. Photo: PR Israeli gut microbiome analysis startup DayTwo, for completing a $31 million investment round. DayTwo offers personalized nutrition optimization suggestions based on feces analysis, designed to reduce the risk of diabetes and other metabolic diseases. According to CEO Lihi Segal, the new funds will allow the company to enter new markets, with an emphasis on Europe and Asia—where she said diabetes is on the rise. Read more
Members of the SpaceIL team, for embarking on a new adventure. Earlier this week, the people behind the Beresheet lunar project announced a change to the Beresheet 2.0 mission. Rather than sending another spacecraft to the moon, SpaceIL will target "another, significant objective."Read more
This week’s losers are:
Samsung, for shuttering Israeli accelerator Samsung Runway after just four years. Samsung Runway started operating in 2015, offering local startups the opportunity to partner with the South Korean electronics giant in their early stages. Estimates place the number of graduating companies at around 50, across five cohorts. Read more
Backers of machine learning company ParallelM, for seeing zero return on their investment. The Sunnyvale, California-headquartered ParallelM has been acquired by predictive modeling company DataRobot for several tens of millions of dollars. It did not yield a return to investors, which include Pitango Venture Capital, Viola Ventures, and North83. Read more
This week’s data point: 20%
A fifth of online buyers don't complete deals, according to Riskified Chief Operations Officer Naama Ofek-Arad. Speaking Monday at Calcalist’s Fintech 2019 conference, Ofek-Arad said there three main reasons for the disappearing 20%: the banks who need to approve the transaction, the cybersecurity systems retailers use, and the multi-step verification processes, which sometimes wear consumers out before they complete the deal. Read more
This week’s top deals:
Luxembourg-based fund Maor closes first Israel-focused fund. Read more
Deutsche Telekom raises $350 million fund. Read more
Urban real estate startup Venn raises $40 million. Read more
Intel backs chip development startup NeuroBlade. Read more
On heels of IGP deal, Cellebrite to bolster Israeli R&D with 100 people. Read more
