CTech’s Tuesday Israeli Tech News Roundup

Israel to offer military personnel a two-year “tech leave.” In recent years, Israel has explored ways to preserve this high-quality talent in light of the lucrative options waiting for them outside of the military. Dubbed as the “time-capsules plan”, the new initiative will allow career soldiers in cyber and tech units in Israel’s military to take up to two years of leave-of-absence to work in selected non-military tech companies. Read more

K1 Capital to acquire Clarizen in management buy out. Backed by Goldman Sachs and Benchmark, Clarizen develops and markets an online project management and collaborative work service. The sum of the MBO is around $110 million, and K1 has committed to infuse Clarizen with an additional $10 million in the near future, to support growth and expansion. Read more

Sequoia Capital, Index Ventures lead $29 Million investment in fintech startup Capitolis. Capitolis was founded in 2017 by CEO Gil Mandelzis, the former CEO of electronic trading technology company EBS BrokerTec (now NEX Markets) and founder of software company Traiana, and by Chairman Tom Glocer, the former CEO of Thomson Reuters. Read more  

Open source vulnerabilities hunter Snyk raises $7 million. Snyk develops software that aims to help developers detect and fix vulnerabilities in third-party open source code modules. The Tel Aviv-based company reports over 120,000 users and 350,000 downloads per month. Read more

3D printing company Stratasys is on way to a long rebound. A few years ago, when 3D printing was the hottest tech trend in capital markets worldwide, the star of Israeli 3D printing company Stratasys was shining brightly. Then, in 2014, 3D printing experienced a wide-spread crash. Between September 2014 and February 2016, Stratasys’ stock price dropped almost 90%. Read more

Israeli researchers cultivate rare desert truffles. Researchers in the Negev desert have succeeded in cultivating the rare desert truffle, whose market price can reach $100 per pound. Read more

Hong Kong-based investment bank Ion Pacific to launch Israeli outpost. Ion Pacific plans to invest at least $100 million in the Israeli market in the next 12-18 months, says founder and co-CEO Itamar Har-Even. Read more