StoreDot Ltd. is completing its first financing round of $6 million. Investors include well-known personalities, although not necessarily from high tech or venture capital: Stef Wertheimer; Genesis Angels, in which Yuval Rabin and Ehud Olmert are partners, making its first investment; and energy storage solutions developer Nation-E Ltd., headed by Daniel Jammer, the former owner of the Maccabi Netanya Football Club.
There is also a strategic investor, which StoreDot CEO Doron Meyersdorf describes as "a leading global mobile and television display company." He declined to mention the name, but StoreDot's entrepreneurs attended The Pitch start-up competition a year ago, where they mentioned Korean giant Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. (KSX: 5930; LSE: SMSN) as a partner and potential investor. Whether the investor is Samsung or another multinational, such a partnership could be critical for StoreDot's success.
Over Hannukah in 2010, researcher and entrepreneur Shimon Litsyn read at his office in Tel Aviv University's Department of Engineering an article in "Nature" about a breakthrough discovery on molecular structures built from biological materials, which could change the world of semiconductors. For years, there has been talk about the use of biological materials in computer systems, and the article showed a real way to achieve it.
Litsyn was surprised that the author, Gil Roseman, a professor of microelectronics was also at Tel Aviv University. The two men barely knew each other, but Litsyn rushed to Rosenman's laboratory to ask one big question: "Can this structure carry an electrical charge?" Litsyn immediately thought an improved management of an electrical charge via the approach proposed by Rosenman could greatly improve basic aspects of computer hardware, including, but not limited to, more efficient digital memory, and faster and more efficient battery recharging.
Litsyn and Roseman founded StoreDot at Tel Aviv University's Nanotechnology Laboratory on the basis of the discovery. A year later, they brought in Meyersdorf, an executive at SanDisk Corporation (Nasdaq:SNDK) to run the venture. The company, which is now emerging from the shrouds of secrecy could become one of Israel's most interest high-tech companies in the years ahead.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on June 25, 2013
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2013