Winners and Losers of the Week: Habana Labs Is This Week's Big Winner

This week’s winners are:

No doubt, the title belongs to Israeli artificial intelligence chip developer Habana Labs, bought by Intel for $2 billion in one of the year’s biggest acquisitions. But there are a lot of candidates competing for recognition: Habana Labs’ first investor and its chairman, Israeli tech entrepreneur Avigdor Willenz; Intel for tightening its grip on the AI chip sector; Habana Labs’ 150 employees in Israel, Poland, and San Jose, California whose stock options are about to turn into millionaires; and perhaps even the state of Israel, looking to pocket hundreds of millions of shekels in tax. Read more

Intel's offices in Israel. Photo: Intel

Another winner this week is Tel Aviv-based Aleph Venture Capital, for raising a $200 million third fund. Aleph had previously raised a $180 million second fund in 2016, and a $150 million fund in 2013. Read more

And lastly, home eye exam startup 6over6, acquired by online contact lens retailer 1-800 Contacts in a deal that was valued more than $100 million. 6over6 develops an online service and app that enables users to test the optical parameters of their glasses, using only a smartphone and a computer. Read more

This week’s losers are:

Serial entrepreneur Ariel Maislos, for shutting down his cloud infrastructure startup Stratoscale. The company had raised $112 million from investors including Intel Capital, Cisco Investments, and SanDisk Ventures, and employed a team of 100. Read more

Cyber deception company Cymmetria, after its Israeli employees have filed for an order of liquidation with the Tel Aviv court, claiming the company is unable to pay them some NIS 1 million in unpaid wages. Cymmetria was acquired by Denver, Colorado-based private equity firm Stage Fund in September.Read more

This week’s data point: 195 Billion

Cisco’s threat intelligence team Talos sees 195 billion incoming requests per day, according to Cisco cybersecurity sales specialist Shirel Amon. According to Amon, Talos also identifies approximately 20 million threats each day. Read more