A Strange Easter/Passover, On-Demand Psychologists, and the WeWork-Softbank Debacle…

A weekly brief ☕️ of the most interesting things we’ve seen in tech in Israel, Sweden, and beyond — 13th of April 2020 📅

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We want to wish all of our readers a Happy Easter and Pesach Sameach! With Zoom’s daily active users jumping from 10 million to over 200 million, it seems that, beyond work, we are also shifting our daily private lives online. The latter can be confirmed by the many Easter and Passover celebrations that were done through video conferencing tools such as Zoom, Hangouts, etc. It seems like the global situation is less dire than it was a week back. The acceleration of new cases in the U.S. seems to have stopped and as governments gain more control over the situation, investors gain confidence.

🗞Noteworthy news

• Software-Defined Wide Area Networks (🇮🇱) — Cato Networks, a cyber startup founded in 2015 focused on providing organizations with a cloud-based and secure global SD-WAN, has raised $77Mn from Lightspeed Venture Partners (Lead), U.S. Venture Partners, Singtel Innov8, Shlomo Kramer, Greylock Partners, and Aspect Ventures.
• SaaS for Deliveries at Scale (🇮🇱) — Bringg, a delivery logistics solution provider, enabling enterprises to efficiently manage their complex delivery operations, raised $30Mn in Series D from Viola Growth (Lead), Salesforce Ventures, GLP, O.G. Tech Ventures, and Next47.
• AI-Driven Crop Protein Solutions (🇮🇱) — Agroscout, a startup developing an autonomous system that allows for quick and efficient detection and monitoring of specific diseases in agriculture, raised $3Mn in Seed from Kibbutz Yiron, Israel Innovation Authority, Bird Foundation, and the Trendlines Group. The funds will be used to expand their market reach to farmers in need of such a solution today and to further deepen their strategic relationship with Oracle.
• Access Management a Modern Workforce (🇮🇱) — Cyolo, a cyber startup enabling trusted access to any system on any network and platform, raised $4.2Mn in Seed from Flint Capital (Lead), Global Founders Capital, and Differential Ventures. The funds will be used to expand and hire more people.
• Hassle-free Smart Locker Delivery (🇸🇪)—Instabox, a same-day e-commerce delivery service using smart lockers, much like amazon lockers, raised $39Mn in funding from Creades AB and Cordet, bringing it to a valuation of $109Mn. The company intends to use the funds to grow from 400 lockers somewhere between 2000–3000 and expand to other markets outside of Sweden. Read more here.
• Meet a Psychologist, Today (🇸🇪) — Mindler, an app that has brought together a network of psychologists that provide quick and cheap service, has raised $8.5Mn in Series A from Ventech and Shibsted Growth. With the new funding, Minder will guarantee that one can consult a psychologist within 24 hours of booking a session at a cost of $10. The funds will be used to introduce the app to more countries in Europe. Read more here.
• Climate Platform Pioneering Cities and Nations (🇸🇪) — ClimateView, a company that’s designing a platform for cities pledging to become carbon neutral, raised $2.5Mn in Seed from Norrsken Foundation (Lead), Nordic Makers, GGV Capital, and Max Ventures. Test out the platform for free here.

🤓What we’ve been reading over the past week

• a16z Loves Marketplaces 🔄 — Jeff Jordan from a16z walks us through why marketplace startups have been so successful, think Uber, Airbnb, and Opentable. They have huge moats in their network effect, they are capital-efficient, and they have high margins. What enables the model to work is the global adoption of smartphones. When this video was made, in late 2015, 2 billion people had smartphones. Today, that number is 5 billion, enabling continued growth of startups making use of the marketplace model.
• Why We Sleep😴 💤 — It puts even the most powerful men and women on their backs, and its power is wildly underestimated. In this book, Matthew Walker (P.hD.), a scientist and professor of neuroscience and psychology at UC Berkeley, gives a comprehensive overview of scientific research on sleep to date. We definitely recommend this one since it includes tips and while we all sleep, its importance and impact on our cognitive and physical performance are still broadly misunderstood.
• Suing your Lifeline⚖💸 — Only a few days after news broke that Softbank is backing out of its tender offer to buy WeWork shares as part of its bailout plan from existing investors, WeWork has announced that it will file a lawsuit over Softbank’s alleged breach of contract. The WeWork rollercoaster remains an interesting story to track and learn lessons — going from $60Bn (at a pre-IPO valuation) to a bailout in under 1 year.

😮 New Funds

• Media and Tech Fund(🇮🇱) —following Ananey’s acquisition by ViacomCBS Networks, the founder Udi Miron has announced his new role as a General Partner at the newly formed Gazella — New Media Experience in which he and ViacomCBS will jointly invest in. Other than the fund’s focus, being Israeli media and tech-related businesses, the size, and planned investments have not been disclosed.

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