Winners of the best venture-backed competition

Last Month, Red Herring and the Israel Venture Association co-sponsored a competition in Israel, limited to early stage companies with revenues of up to $10 million in 2006 supported by venture funds associated with the IVA.

Three Israeli startups received first prizes as the best young companies in their respective sectors.

And the winners are:






Software Category: Safend Inc.
Main Idea: Safend develops software to prevent data leaks in the organization, especially from authorized users.

• Founded: 2003
• CEO: Gil Sever
• Employees: 50
  
• Capital Raised: Safend has raised $9.65 Million in 2 rounds.
• Key Investors: Intel Capital, Walden Israel and Elron Electronics.
  

Communications Category: Unipier
Main Idea: A merger between Cash-U and Niragongo created Unipier, the developer of IPM - Intelligent Policy Management software that enables wireless providers to create, integrate and manage services fast.

• Founded: 2000
• CEO: Gabby Levy
• Employees: 60
• Capital Raised: Unipier has raised $43 Million in 4 rounds
• Key Investors: Greylock Partners, Intel Capital, Carmel Ventures, Fidelity Ventures, Pitango Venture Capital
  
  

Life Sciences Category: G.I. View
Main Idea: G.I. View has developed Aer-O-Scope, a new colonoscopy device that consists of a disposable camera embedded in a balloon that propels itself through the colon, providing a 360 degree view.

• Founded: 2003
• CEO: Dr. Benad Goldwasser
• Capital Raised: $29 Million in 4 rounds
• Key Investors: Israel Healthcare Ventures, Delta Ventures, Zielgler Meditech Medical Partners

See the rest of the finalists here.

Ceedo recieves an undisclosed investment from Intel Capital

Intel Capital, Intel's investment group, invested an undisclosed sum in Ceedo Technologies, a privately held software company.

The Israel-based company said it would use the investment to:

'further establish its position as a leader in personal working environment software for consumer portable storage devices, and accelerate its growth into the corporate and business market segments'.

Ceedo's virtualization technology enables running Windows applications from external physical or network drives without requiring installation on the host PC. It allows users to carry their programs, documents, e-mails and favorite browser with them, accessing them through an easy-access menu once connected to a computer. In other words - Ceedo Personal enables users to access all the PC programs - on the go. (Ceedo Personal is available for a free trial through this link.)

Ceedo was founded in 2005 by Dror Wettenstein (currently serves as CTO) and is led by Dror Sofer, the former COO of XACCT Technologies.