Every year, the UK edition of the renowned WIRED Magazine publishes its famous list of 100 European startups, which are carefully selected and featured in the magazine’s September edition. Now we can reveal that 10 of these selected startups are from Israel (which is technically in Asia).
In an article devoted to the Startup Nation, which will be published in the magazine, WIRED assistant editor Oliver Franklin-Wallis, asserts that “Tel Aviv is where the money is,” after mentioning Israeli companies’ extraordinary “exits” and IPOs, which topped $15 billion in 2014.
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To pick its rising stars, WIRED explains, “We define ‘hot’ as being talked about locally by people who matter: It’s about buzz, not valuation or market size.” WIRED’s selection of the 10 promising Israeli startups includes companies from a large variety of high-tech fields, including mobile technologies, analytics and healthcare.
Mobile technologies
One of the most intriguing companies on WIRED’s list is Consumer Physics. Last year, the company shattered all expectations with the launch of its cutting-edge pocket spectrometer named SCiO, a USB-sized device that can read and analyze the molecular composition of any physical object, like the freshness of your apple, or the water levels of your plant. SCiO raised $2.8 million in a few weeks on crowdfunding platform Kickstarter, well surpassing its initial goal of $200,000.
Another WIRED favorite is Moovit, a mobile app that has changed the way people use public transportation. Using crowd-sourcing data and real-time information from passengers, the app recommends the fastest public transport routes at any given time.
WIRED also heaped praise on startup Adallom, which provides a layer of protection for organizational information transferred over mobile applications. Adallom’s cloud application security platform buffers between users’ devices and their applications in a non-intrusive way. The startup was recently acquired by American software giant Microsoft for a whopping $320 million.
StoreDot, another mobile technology startup, has also captured the attention of WIRED editors, who probably sympathize (like most of us) with the notion that charging your smartphone shouldn’t take a few hours. StoreDot‘s FlashBattery can charge smartphones in a record-breaking 30 seconds, freeing millions of people from the constant worry of low battery life! Recently, StoreDot announced the development of a new, super-fast charger for electric cars, which according to the company will one day charge vehicles in five minutes.
Analytics
In addition to mobile technologies, WIRED has also selected a couple of young analytics firms. AppsFlyer, used by 5,000 advertisers, provides analytics to measure the effectiveness of campaigns on smartphone apps. For example, it can track the impact of a television ad on mobile downloads in real time. In addition, WIRED picked Israeli startup SimilarWeb, which analyzes the performance of websites and apps, providing traffic rankings and insights using data from different sources.
The technological magazine also picked Israeli startup FeeX, which analyzes financial statements to discover how much money we’re losing in hidden fees we’re unaware of. Grey charges, says Feex, are everywhere, especially in your bank accounts and pension plans and that’s why the self-proclaimed ‘Robin Hood of Fees’ is helping consumers get their money back.
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Other startups on the WIRED list include the hugely popular quiz and entertainment platform PlayBuzz; Windward, which analyzes satellite feeds and maritime data to track the location and contents of ships across oceans; and Zebra Medical Vision, which trains computers to diagnose diseases and is currently building a worldwide database of images.
Photos: Pikiwiki
