CTech’s Weekly Roundup of Israeli Tech News

WeWork strikes a delicate religious balance with Jerusalem site. Shared real estate company WeWork launched its first Jerusalem location just two weeks ago and had already managed to dodge a bullet in the form of wide-ranging protests from the city’s large community of ultra-Orthodox Jews. Read more

Mueller investigation of Russian oligarch sinks Israeli predictive analytics company. Tel Aviv-based Fifth Dimension has recently fired all of its employees. The company is chaired by Benny Gantz, the Israeli military’s former Chief of Staff. Read more

Can more Israelis join the country’s tech boom? two reports draw conflicting conclusions. Jewish, non-Orthodox men take up 74.1% of the country’s tech jobs. Two-thirds of the tech companies that participated in a survey reported having zero Arab employees. Read more

Airbnb contests claims of settlements ban reversal. Airbnb released a statement Monday calling reports saying it reversed the ban “inaccurate.” Read more

Work hard, play on your own time. Some Israeli startups choose to separate leisure from work, forgoing the gaming and recreation rooms associated with tech culture. Read more

Scrapped London skyscraper set to dominate Tel Aviv skyline. A tower ditched mid-construction in London in the 2008 economic downturn is now being resurrected in Tel Aviv in a midst of an unprecedented tech boom in the city. Read more

The gender wage gap is bigger in Israel. Women in Israel earned 69% of the average male monthly salary in 2017. The global average gender wage gap in 2018 stands at 19%. Read more

Facebook temporarily blocks Netanyahu’s son for hate speech. The social network temporarily banned the son of the Israeli Prime Minister following three anti-Palestinian posts, prompting him to take to Twitter and accuse Facebook of operating asa "thought police.” Read more

Whatsapp used for child pornography, online safety company warns. Israel-based AntiToxin has identified more than 1300 videos and photographs of minors involved in sexual acts on WhatsApp groups. Read more

M&A and IPO

Verint to pay $65 million for Cloud company ForeSee. Read more

Xenon Ventures buys Israeli cloud company Xplenty. Read more

Particle analyzer company PML sold following liquidation. Read more

 

Startup funding

Cloud security startup Avanan raises $25 million. Read more

Self diagnosis startup K Health raises $25 million. Read more

Personal assistant robot developer Temi raises $21 million. Read more

Citi, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, and J.P. Morgan back fintech startup AccessFintech. Read more

Online support network startup Wisdo raised $11 million. Read more

Cloud company Cloudify raises $7 million. Read more