YSL Europe/Israel Enterprise/Tech Weekly

The Angle Issue #15: February 19, 2018

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From the blog

Recent: The Evolution of the AI/ML Application Space.

2018 EU+IL VC Data. $20.3B of VC investment summarized in 74 slides. 

Europe/Israel Enterprise/Tech

• UK/Payments. Visa acquired Fraedom, a UK-based transaction management SaaS platform for $200M. 

• Israel/Intel. The semiconductor giant plans to double down on its already substantial investment in Israel with another $4-5B to upgrade the Kiryat Gat Fab to 7-nanometer technology. 

• Switzerland/Crypto. The Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) published a set of guildelines for regulating cryptocurrencies. The guidelines are designed to crack down on money-laundering and fraud, and categorize tokens into three categories: payment tokens, utility tokens, and asset tokens. 

• Switzerland/Ocology Data. Roche, the global pharmaceutical company announced it would acquire Flatiron Health, a NY-based startup that analyzes oncology data to help cancer patients and doctors, for $1.9 billion.

• Israel/Insurance. Haaretz takes a look at why global insurance companies are flocking to Israel to look for tech.

• Israel/Robotics. CommonSense robotics raised $20M for robotic grocery fulfillment. 

• New York, New York. Why Israeli startups are increasingly choosing New York over the valley.

• Israel/Website Design. Wix reported revenue growth of 41% in 2017, to $118M. They project 40% growth in 2018 as well.

• Sweden/Israel/Payments. Swedish payments company Klarna is shutting down its Tel Aviv development center. 

Worth reading

• A systematic problem in Silicon Valley. When Bill Gurley speaks, I listen: "Venture capitalist board members are finding harder and harder to speak up and hold entrepreneurs responsible for financial performance."

• Enterprise sales hiring playbook. New York-based enterprise VC Work-Bench released an enterpise sales hiring playbook, an awesome resource for enterprise CEOs.

• The compression of the hype cycle? Matt Turck of FirstMark with a thoughtul post on how the hype cycle is getting shorter. "Recently, hype cycles have become even harder to decipher and “time” correctly. They’re much faster, with the time between boom and bust going from years to mere months.  They’re also more pronounced, with sharper spikes that feel like instant bubbles.  As soon as a category shows early signs of promise, founding activity accelerates dramatically and investor money flows in very rapidly...The category then goes cold quickly, and everyone moves on to the next shiny object." The killer quote is this one: "From an investor perspective, a shorter cycle compresses the window during which one can be “contrarian and right."

• The Decentralization Manifesto. Chris Dixon of A16Z on why he believes decentralization is so important. Essentially, he argues that decentralization will form the core of the next wave of web applications (what he calls "Web 3").  A16Z also put out what they call the "Crypto Canon" this week - an extensive reading list on everything crypto. 

• Customization is a four-letter word. The WSJ on how the era of customized enterprise software seems to be ending: "Once considered a major selling point by enterprise software vendors, customizable applications and platforms for payroll, inventory, human resources and other business operations can become costly headaches as companies shift more workloads into the cloud, CIOs and industry analysts say."

• Break up big tech. The incorrigible Scott Galloway on how big tech has rendered marketing uncompetitive - and argues that big tech should be broken up. Five minutes of compelling video.

• Oracle dives into the cloud. Oracle, a latecomer to cloud infrastructure, announced aggressive plans to set up 12 cloud-based data centers: '"Larry making bravado statements doesn’t help,” said Roy Illsley, lead cloud analyst at Ovum in London. “Oracle is now spending the money it needs to spend and showing intent, rather than making noise.” Mr. Illsley thinks Oracle can make up ground since many critical computing operations running on the company’s technology are only just beginning to move away from corporate data centers. Oracle can also benefit by selling its cloud applications and analytics tools, which will run in the new regions, to customers in markets where they weren’t previously available."'

• Beyond the ICO. Eden Shochat of Aleph, who has emerged as a thought leader on ICO mechanics, writes that founder should beware the implications of an ICO: "Attention, Founders: That ICO Is About To Dilute You, Too"

• Cisco grows again. Cisco reported revenue growth for the first time in two years. 

• More threats to adtech. Unilever threatened to stop buying advertising on Facebook and Google if they don't stop "helping to spread hate speech and create divisions in society."

• Ethics of computer science. How universities across the US are starting to help students wrestle with the ethical implications of technology. 

Portfolio News

BitSrc hit 1000 stars on github.
An interview with Jfrog's CEO, Shlomi Ben Haim.
SiSense added MicroStrategy veteran Paul Zolfaghari to its board of directors.