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Globes start-up of the year: OpTier(Israel Business Arena Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Business transaction management software developer OpTier Ltd. has been named the Globes most promising start-up of the year for 2007-2008. Globes editor-in-chief Haggai Golan made the announcement at the 11th Annual Globes and Ernst & Young Israel Israel Journey Conference 2007. This is the third year that Globes is co-hosting the Journey Conference. Last year's winner was Actimize Ltd., acquired by NICE Systems Ltd. (Nasdaq: NICE; TASE: NICE) for $280 million earlier this year. The 2005 winner was Mellanox Technologies Ltd. (Nasdaq:MLNX; TASE:MLNX). TransPharma Medical Ltd. won second place this year. The company is developing a transdermal drug delivery technology and preparations suitable for the device. Third place finisher is Storwize Inc., which has developed data compression software that boosts enterprise data storage capabilities. OpTier was founded in 2003. The company has enjoyed a rare luxury: venture capital funds have lined up to invest in it, enabling it be highly selective in its investors. OpTier founder, chairman and CEO Israel Mazin once told Globes, We could have raised almost the entire amount we wanted from every Israeli venture capital fund. This is no mere bragging. Mazin has done it before. He founded Memco Software and sold it in 1999 to Computer Associates Inc. (NYSE:CA) for $550 million as part of its.5 billion acquisition of Platinum Technology International Inc. This was the largest exit by an Israeli high-tech start-up at the time. Mazin clearly sees a similar exit for OpTier down the road, in the form of an IPO on Nasdaq. An IPO is still far off, it won't happen in the next 12 to 18 months. Not before 2009, that for sure. But we see this as part of our growth process. Meanwhile, the goal is build a healthy company. The top ten most promising start-ups are as follows: OpTier Developing business transaction management software. Raised $53 million. See article: OpTier investors hope lightning will strike twice Transpharma Developing a transdermal drug delivery device. Raised $34 million. See article: TransPharma gets under your skinStorwize Developing data compression software. Raised $19 million. See article: Storewize: More knowledge, less powerEnzymotec Ltd. Develops food supplements. Raised a few million dollars. Oberon Media Inc. Develops and publishes casual games that can be downloaded from the Internet or by cellular phones. Raised tens of millions of dollars. Distcretix Inc. Develops integrated security solutions for cellular devices and flash memory. Raised $32 million. DeepBreeze Ltd. Develops non-radiation pulmonary imaging systems using acoustic signals from breathing. Raised $30-32 million. Coppergate Communications Ltd. Develops chipsets for the home networking and broadband access markets. Raised $1 million. GigaSpaces Inc. Develops infrastructure software solutions for dispersed GRID operating environments. Raised $15 million. Red Bend Software Ltd. Develops solutions for mobile phone and network operators to speed up the adoption of new services and features. Raised $24 million. Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes.co.il - on October 25, 2007 Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2007 Copyright 2007 Globes, Source: The Financial Times Limited |