Israel Digital News

Web and messaging security products provider M86 Security has acquired Finjan, a global provider of secure Web gateway and hybrid SaaS solutions for the enterprise market.

M86 acquires Finjan's global operations, products, and technology. The American company will maintain Finjan’s development center and operations in Netanya, Israel, and will also merge Finjan’s security labs, Malicious Code Research Center, into M86 Security Labs. M86 didn't disclose any financial details about the deal.

M86 Security was formed by the November 2008 merger of Marshal and 8e6 Technologies. Finjan is the company`s second acquisition in the last 6 months, following the March 2009 acquisition of behavioral malware detection company Avinti. The acquisition grows M86 Security`s employee base to just more than 300 employees.

"The acquisition of Finjan supports our strategy to become the recognized leader in comprehensive inbound and outbound content security," said John Vigouroux, the CEO of M86, who joined M86 in April 2009 from his position as President and CEO of Finjan. "With Finjan real-time code analysis and M86 behavior-based malware detection, M86 now offers industry-leading threat protection technologies on both the Web and Email, and can provide an effective way to enable these technologies on appliances, software, or in the cloud."

Finjan provides active real-time content inspection and code analysis technology focused on identifying malware delivered inbound through the Web channel. Finjan’s solutions protect more than 1.5 million users in more than a thousand corporations worldwide. The company was founded in 1996 by Shlomo Tubul and is headquartered in San Jose, California.

Israel Digital Blog Ads – SQL Optimization | Weather Stations Monitoring Systems | Testing Android Apps

Customer experience systems (CES) provider Amdocs will acquire the convergent Java and applications service platform provider jNetX for $50 million net of debt and cash.

The combination of Amdocs and jNetX products will allow service providers to expose both Telecom and IP components in the network to offer convergent network, IT and Web-based services to all of their customers. In addition to the product synergies, Amdocs and jNetX share a number of top tier customers, including Vodafone Group, British Telecom and Mobilkom.

“One of the biggest challenges with this new, rapid service delivery model has been to ensure that services can be efficiently provisioned and properly monetized through real-time charging mechanisms,” said Gary Miles, CEO of jNetX. “By incorporating the jNetX carrier-class service platform into the CES suite, Amdocs extends its market leading offering providing a consolidated OSS, BSS and SDP solution for consistent service creation, management, delivery, charging and customer care.”

jNetX is now the global market leader providing standards based Java technologies and applications across convergent Fixed, Mobile, IMS and Internet/Intranet environments. The American based coampny has more than 150 experienced communications and IT professionals in US, UK, France, Thailand, Mexico and Russia.

Amdocs provides solutions that deliver customer experience excellence, combining the software, services and expertise to help its customers execute their strategies and achieve service, operational and financial excellence. Amdocs was founded in 1988 and is based in Chesterfield, Missouri. It has R&D centers in Raanana and Herzliya, Israel. Amdocs traded on the New York Stock Exchange (symbol DOX) with a market cap of $5 billion.

Israel Digital Blog Ads – SQL Database Performance Improvement | Testing Windows Mobile Application | Data Acquisition Logger

NICE Systems has signed an agreement to acquire the cellular location tracking technology provider Hexagon System Engineering for approximately $11 million.

Hexagon is a global provider of mobile location, and wireless planning and optimization software products for WiMAX, UMTS, GSM, CDMA, BWA, and LTE. Hexagon’s mobile location engine is used for LBS, homeland security, and public safety.

Hexagon's technology enables high levels of cellular location accuracy at a fraction of the infrastructure deployment costs versus competitive alternatives. With this transaction NICE strengthens its position in communications interception market by adding innovative technology for communications information analysis that is complementary to the NiceTrack offering.

"This transaction reflects our focused strategy of continually enhancing our company's core competence in capturing, managing, and analyzing massive amounts of unstructured data. We believe it will help support our goals for the NICE security business," said Israel Livnat, President of Security Group, NICE Systems.

The NiceTrack solutions portfolio enables interception of all types of communications and generates comprehensive intelligence. The Hexagon solution will further bolster the NiceTrack portfolio in addressing the growing demand for location tracking capabilities.

Dr. Moshe Levin founded Hexagon in 1998 and since then has served as the President and CEO of the company. Prior to founding Hexagon, Levin served as the Vice-President of Research and Planning and as the Chief Scientist of the Wireless Systems Division at Tadiran Telecommunications (renamed InnoWave and today a part of Alvarion). Hexagon Headquarters and R&D center are located in Petah Tikva, Israel.

Israel Digital Blog Ads – Testing Mobile Phone Applications | SQL Database Performance Analysis

Crescendo Networks, a provider of solutions for accelerating and optimizing Web application delivery, secures $5 million.

The new round of financing was led by Trilogy Equity Partners, along with current investors Evergreen Venture Partners, Apax Partners, StageOne Ventures, and Challenge Fund. Crescendo Networks has attracted more than $45 million in investment over the previous 7 years.

The new funding will fuel the company's US sales expansion and continued global product innovation. Adoram Ga'ash, the company co-founder and CEO, has relocated to Crescendo Networks' new corporate headquarters in Menlo Park, California, as part of the company strategy to increase its existing presence in the North American market.

"As the IT world experiences a paradigm shift in the way applications are delivered, data centers are incorporating cloud computing, SaaS and virtualization as part of modern web application infrastructures. We believe Crescendo Networks' application delivery solutions are perfectly poised to capitalize on these expanding market opportunities," said Peter van Oppen of Trilogy Equity Partners.

Crescendo Networks' application delivery platform speeds web-apps performance while increasing server efficiency and improving application security and availability. Crescendo Networks maintains regional headquarters in the China, South Korea, and Singapore. The company engineering and corporate operations are located in Or-Yehuda, Israel.

Israel Digital Blog Ads – Mobile Application Testing | Data Logger | Database Performance Improvement

In-Text Advertising solutions provider Kontera has closed a $15.5 million round of financing. Sequoia Capital led the financing round, with participation from Tenaya Capital and Carmel Ventures.

“Kontera has opened up the vast, uncharted territory of the internet – the detailed content of web pages,” said Michael Moritz of Sequoia Capital. “Thanks to Kontera’s semantic analysis of the contents and meaning of a web page, users can now find information that previously lay buried and advertisements can be positioned with far greater precision.”

Kontera delivers relevant information and ads directly within web text and Web page contents. Reaching more than 100 million unique users per month, Kontera’s ad network features over 15,000 premium and niche publishers. Founded in 2003, Kontera has offices in San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, Detroit, Chicago, Atlanta and Herzliya.

Israel Digital Blog Ads – SQL Server Performance Index Tuning | Wireless Data Acquisition Logger

Mobile social networking platform provider Jag.ag will partner with Israel's leading cellular phone provider, Cellcom Israel, to launch a new personal photo sharing online service. The new service, which will be provided for free, can be applied to all phones and cellular networks.

The mobile content service allows Cellcom’s 3.2 million users design their own mobile site. Each personal site includes features such as picture upload and text editing. Updating the site does not require any prior experience.

“The new service is straightforward, works on any mobile phone and transforms any site into a personal blog, including pictures and text. It is a great tool for self expression for any phone owner and is not limited only to those owning high end phones,” said Lior Netzer, CEO of Jag.ag.

Mobile photo sharing sites can be created on a mobile phone through Cellcom’s Mobile Portal or Web site. Once such a site has been created friends can be notified via SMS that includes a link to the site.

Israel Digital Blog Ads – Tuning SQL Server | Wireless Access Control Solution | Mobile Device Testing Services

In-store digital media solutions provider YCD Multimedia has raised $12 million in a new financing round led by Pitango Venture Capital and Arts Alliance Digital Ventures and conversion of a bridge loan facility.

"This new investment gives us the capital to support the initiatives we are undertaking with larger chains in the US and internationally," said Barry Salzman, Chief Executive Officer.

YCD Multimedia providing retailers with a turnkey platform to create, manage, distribute and optimize in-store digital media to help drive sales and profitability.

YCD's clients include some of the world's most recognized brands such as American Airlines, Toyota, Kodak, Hilton Hotels, Cartier, Pizza Hut, and Heineken. Founded in 1999, YCD has offices in the US, UK and Israel.

Israel Digital Blog Ads – GSM Data Logger | Test Mobile Apps | Database Performance Tuning Tool

Web semantic advertising startup Peer39 has raised $10.5 million in a third fund-raising round led by Evergreen. Existing investors, Canaan Partners, Silicon Valley Bank, JP Morgan, and Dawntreader Ventures, joining this round, bringing the total financing raised by the company to over $22 million to date.

"With this financial commitment, we will expand our US sales presence and continue to develop our proprietary technology, thus helping publishers get higher returns from their online content while enabling advertisers to confidently protect their brands," said Amiad Solomon, CEO of Peer39.

Founded in 2006, Peer39 is creating online advertising and content monetization platform, based on natural language processing and machine learning. Headquartered in New York City, Peer39 maintains a research and development center in Israel.

Israel Digital Blog Ads - Wastewater Treatment Control | Mobile Web Applications Testing Solutions

IM service provider ICQ has chosen innerActive’s mobile advertising network to offer free ad-supported premium content such as video, games and applications to its users, through its PC client, mobile website and mobile portal.

Integrating innerActive’s content and their in-game advertising solution will enable ICQ to provide its 42 million users worldwide with quality rich media content for free on all media platforms, according to Ofer Oved, vice president of ICQ.

innerActive is a leading premium ad network for mobile rich media content. The Israeli start up has already partnered with the leading off deck portals like Boungiorno, Fox Mobile, Cellfish, and IMImobile.

Israel Digital Blog Ads – Data Logger Control System | Brain Training Exercises | Mobile Testing Services

UK’s ticket comparison site Tixdaq had acquired Sportingo, a global online sportswriters’ community site, to enhance its price comparison services to sport fans across UK.

Tixdaq is a free comparison service that allow user to find, compare and buy tickets for live sport and music events. Sportingo operates three Web sites that address the different areas of interest for sport fans: user generated sport magazine site, sportingo.com; football blog caughtoffside.com, as well as the online directory of online sport video, getsport.tv. These sites generate one million visits every month.

“In the past few months it become clear that with the current business climate our best chance to succeed would be by joining forces with another company,” said Ze’ev Rozov, CEO of Sportingo. “Combining the audience and platform from our sites with the innovative ticketing information and services at Tixtaq creates a much stronger company.”

“In the same way that Tixdaq has helped to simplify the ticketing space, Sportingo has used the social internet to democratise sports journalism,” said Steve Machin, EVP Tixdaq. ”We see real opportunities to combine quality user generated content with our entertainment comparison service.”

Sportingo was founded by Israeli entrepreneurs Tal Boneach and Rozov. Sportingo Web site was officially launched in February 2007, and in June 2007 the company completed the acquisition of CaughtOffside.com. In October 2007, Sportingo has raised a $3.2 million from Ingenious Media Active Capital (IMAC).

Founded in 2006 by Will Muirhead, Tixdaq is now the leading provider of ticket resale data to the live entertainment industry.

Israel Digital Blog Ads – Brain Training Exercise | Wireless Remote Monitoring | Mobile MMS Advertising

Smart phone compliance and data leak prevention solution provider Onset Technology has secured $3 million in a funding round from Cedar Fund, The Challenge Fund and Jerusalem Global Ventures. Onset will use the capital to expand its support of METAmessage Advanced Compliance Tool (ACT) for BlackBerry smart phones and introduce new versions of ACT for iPhone, Windows Mobile and Symbian devices.

ACT allows organizations to scan, block and archive all wireless communications to keep companies compliance under regulations like SEC, NASD, Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPAA, FINRA and more. The company’s solutions are available from all major US wireless carriers.

“Wireless compliance is a new and increasingly important challenge for large organizations,” said Ronen Yehoshua of the Cedar Fund. “Smart phones are evolving into a laptop replacement communications tool, meaning that companies must expand compliance controls from the desktop to smartphones. We firmly believe that Onset Technology has a breakthrough smartphone compliance and data leak prevention solution that will help enterprises save money and hassle by keeping them covered on compliance.”

Onset Technology develops software solutions for wireless messaging compliance, data loss prevention, emergency communications and mobile device management. Onset’s METAmessage Wireless platform serves more than 1,400 enterprise, government, health care and emergency services clients globally. Onset was founded in 1997 and is headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts, with a research and development center in Herzliya Pituach, Israel, and offices in New York, Washington, and California.

Israel Digital Blog Ads – Remote Monitoring | Video Ad Insertion | Testing Service for BlackBerry Developers

Dynamic video generation solution provider SundaySky has completed an $8 million venture capital financial round led by Carmel Ventures and Globespan Capital Partners. The round of investment will allow the company to rapidly expand its marketing, sales and business development activities mainly in the US while continuing to develop its product line.

SundaySky provides real time, personalized and automatic generation of video content for e-commerce, social networks, news and entertainment Web sites and blogs. SundaySky’s platform enables Web sites to automatically convert their content into dynamic, continuously updated, high quality video clips, in order to increase their conversion rates while creating a significant inventory of video ads.

"Video is becoming the most important and fast growing form of web media,” said Avi Zeevi of Carmel Ventures, who joined the Company’s board of directors. "We found SundaySky to have a unique combination of an outstanding founding team and a breakthrough technology which can change the way video content is created.”

Founded in 2006 by Shmulik Weller and Yaniv Axen, SundaySky has developed innovative video solution which enables publishers to quickly and easily infuse their Web site with video. The SundaySky dynamic video platform extracts the content from any Web site and molds it into professional video clips.

Israel Digital Blog Ads – GSM Remote Datalogger | Brain Fitness Program | Endpoint Security Solutions

Software applications developer startup Soluto has raised $2.3 million in first financing round led by Giza Venture Capital and Proxima Investments.

Naftali Bennett and Lior Golan, who previously founded and managed Cyota, which was sold to RSA for $145 million, also participated in this investment round, and will joined Soluto as advisors to the management.

Soluto is an early stage startup that developing unique and innovative software tool for the personal computer market. Based in Tel-Aviv, Israel, the company is currently in stealth mode and plans to release its initial product in early 2009.

Soluto was founded in November 2007 by Tomer Dvir, the company’s CEO, and Ishay Green, Soluto CTO and Chief Architect. Nadav Zohar, a former senior executive at Morgan Stanley, is serving as Soluto Chairman.

Dvir formerly served as a senior executive at MDG Medical, a provider of medication management systems. Green previously co-founded data protection solutions provider Onigma which was sold to McAfee for $20 million in October 2006.

Israel Digital Blog Ads – Remote Data Logger Control | Brain Exercise Program | USB Devices Security

SemantiNet, a developer of semantic Web based information discovery Tool, has secured $3.4 million in Series A funding from Giza venture capital, Yossi Vardi, Ronald Cohen, Jeff Pulver, Robert Imershein and Moudi Ben-Shach. Those investors also participated in SemantiNet $1.7 million seed round on January 2008.

The Israeli startup also announced the opening of a new San Francisco sales and marketing office to support its upcoming worldwide product launch in late September of 2008.

SemantiNet product is an intelligent browser plugin that dynamically discovering, integrating and providing easy access to personally-relevant content. The company software leverages key technologies and services from companies such as Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Mozilla and Yahoo.

"SemantiNet's core technology is now being leveraged by a unique consumer application, combining a crowd-sourcing approach with the power of semantic web reasoning," said Oz Leave, Chairman of the Board for SemantiNet. "We are are looking forward to providing our users with an information discovery assistant that is fun to use, easy-to-understand and seamlessly integrated into their browser."

SemantiNet headquarters and R&D is based in Tel Aviv, Israel. The company was founded in February 2007 by Tal Keinan, SemantiNet CEO, and Tal Muscal, the company CTO. Keinan was a member of the Risk Department of Morgan Stanley and Muscal previously served as a developer at Go Networks.

Israel Digital Blog Ads – Mobile Applications Testing | Brain Games | Database Performance Management

Mobile search and advertising company JumpTap has closed a $26 million funding round led by AllianceBernstein. All existing investors also participated in the round including General Catalyst Partners, Summerhill Venture Partners, Redpoint Ventures, Valhalla Partners, and WPP.

The funding will be used to further develop JumpTap's powerful mobile search and advertising solutions and to continue expansion of its global ad sales and operations divisions to meet increased demand from advertisers.

JumpTap's has developed search and advertising solutions that enables mobile operators to maintain a strong, sustainable position in the mobile marketing value chain, drives traffic and revenue opportunities to content publishers, and gives advertisers access to targeted customers. The company is currently reaching over 150 million mobile subscribers through partnerships with 17 mobile operators and numerous content publishers like NBC Universal and Fox Mobile Entertainment.

Founded in 2004, JumpTap is a privately-held company headquartered in Cambridge, MA, USA, with a development center in Tel Aviv, Israel. The company has recently opened new offices in Madrid, Stockholm, and New York City.

Israel Digital Blog Ads – Remote Monitoring System | Free Online Brain Teasers Game| Mobile Greetings