3 Israeli Startups - Boomerang, NiNiSpeech & AerialGuard - Chosen to Represent Israel at Shengjing Global Innovation Awards 2016 in Beijing, Competing Against Startups From U.S., Europe, and China for Prizes Worth $1.5 Million

JERUSALEM and BEIJING, June 21, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Startups to Gain Exposure from Investors throughout the World and Meet Chinese Tech Giants. Israel Segment of Competition Led by Israeli VC Fund JVP in Cooperation with Chinese Management Consulting Firm Shengjing Group. 

The three Israeli startups chosen to represent Israel at the finals of the Shengjing Global Innovation Awards 2016 in Beijing this August are genetic-therapy-for-cancer-developer Boomerang, mobile speech therapy startup NiNiSpeech and creator of autonomous navigation system for drones, AerialGuard.

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The winners will compete against startups from the U.S., Europe and China for prizes worth $1.5M (prize money, without equity), the opportunity for investment from a special fund of $25M established by the Shengjing Group for the competition finalists and exposure of their technological solutions to investors and leading companies from China and throughout the world. The finalists are expected to go on a road show which will include meetings with Chinese tech giants, as well as extensive coverage from Chinese media.

The Global Innovation Awards were established by leading Chinese management consulting firm Shengjing Group and are taking place in China, the U.S., Europe, Latin America and Israel.

The Israel segment of the competition is led by internationally recognized VC firm Jerusalem Venture Partners (JVP). Local competition partners include global technology corporations with strong footholds in Israel and other leading Israeli firms including EMC, Microsoft, Poalim Hi-Tech, Ernst &Young Israel, HFN, Nautilus by Aol and PR Newswire.

The Israel segment of the competition was launched in March this year. 140 Israeli startups entered the Israel segment of the global competition from a wide variety of fields. The three winners were selected from the eight companies chosen for the semifinal competition by judges from amongst the leaders of the Israeli hi-tech ecosystem.

This year, a wide variety of startups participated in the competition from a number of different sectors, including FinTech, Pharma, Medical Devices, Healthcare IT, Enterprise Software, Internet, Media, IoT and more.

Israeli startup DiACardio, which is revolutionizing heart ultrasound, was named the winner of the 1st annual Global Innovation Awards during last year's finals in Beijing.

"We put a lot of emphasis on choosing companies with solid global potential which understand market trends on a worldwide basis," said Yoav Tzruya, JVP Partner. "There is a lot of deep technology in the Global Innovation Awards competition this year and this is a true testament to the Israeli tech ecosystem."

"This year, we are pleased to see that there are a wide variety of companies in the competition, including those with specific applicability to the Chinese market," said Sherrie Wang, Senior Partner, Shengjing. "DiACardio already has its first Chinese customer. We have already invested over $60 million in Israel."

Also participating were: Xueling Cao, Director at Shengjing; Kobi Rozengarten, Raffi Kesten and Gadi Tirosh, Managing Partners at JVP; Fiona Darmon, Partner & COO at JVP; Hanan Haviv, Partner at HFN; Yoram Teitz, Managing Partner at EY; and Rakefet Sudri, Head of Sales at PR Newswire Israel. Participating judges included: Steven Katz, Principal Investor at EMC Ventures; Amir Pinchas, Head of Operations & Portfolio at Microsoft Accelerator; Ari Aslan, Partner at EY; Yossi Vinitski, Head of High Tech at Bank Hapoalim; Merav Rotem-Naaman, Head of Nautilus by Aol; Ronen Hausirer, Partner, Technology Licensing Group of the Hi-Tech Department at HFN; Yoav Kantor, Key Account Manager at PR Newswire Israel.

The Three Finalists that Will Represent Israel in the Beijing Finals: 

Boomerang is developing a genetic device for cancer therapy based on a concept of a logic AND gate: the activation of our CRISPR-based system is dependent on the existence of two cancer-specific markers inside the cell, promising an extremely specific treatment. Using advanced gene editing tools, our system is able to effectively eliminate cancer cells by activating suicide genes. Moreover, our system can be potentially designed according to the genetics of each patient's tumor, paving the way to personalized medicine.

NiNiSpeech revolutionizes speech therapy using unique mobile technologies. Speech therapy is a $30B annual industry, still acting in traditional manual fashion, resulting in very poor outcome - 84% relapse rate in stuttering therapy. NiNiSpeech offers the first of its kind digital solution that boosts the therapist's and patients' experience, maximizes outcome, and reduces costs. The NiNiSpeech system is used in top clinics around the world and is endorsed by key opinion leaders. NiNiSpeech has won prestigious awards in the USA, Europe and China for its novel disruptive products.

Aerial Guard is a software company that develops advanced autonomous navigation systems for unmanned vehicles. We target the civilian drone industry and help drone manufacturers to automate their drones by providing them with autonomous capabilities such as sense and avoid and intelligent navigation in compliance with the drone mission.

About ShengJing Group - ShengJing Group is the largest and leading innovation service platform in China and devoted to setting up a global innovative ecosystem. The company has provided innovative business training to 20,000 Chinese entrepreneurs and invested almost $1 billion FoFs and direct investments in 2015. It is devoted to investing in and setting up the networks and platforms of top global investment institutions. In 2014 alone, ShengJing, Jiacheng FOF Platform has invested in over 15 brand investment institutions and incubators with the investment scale of nearly RMB 2 billion yuan. In 2015, Shengjing invested almost $1 billion include FoFs and direct investments in China, USA and Israel.

(http://www.shengjing360.com/channels/186.html)

About Jerusalem Venture Partners (JVP) - Jerusalem Venture Partners ("JVP") is a prominent global venture capital fund based out of the JVP Media Quarter in Jerusalem and the JVP Cyber Labs in Beer Sheva. Established in 1993 as part of the renowned Yozma program, JVP has raised over $1 billion to date and was ranked by Preqin as one of the top-ten consistently performing VC firms worldwide based on IRR and net returns. JVP has built over 120 companies, leveraging a broad network of partners and market expertise to help them to become global market leaders. JVP has enjoyed 29 notable exists - 12 IPOs and 17 M&As - the most recent being NASDAQ-listed CyberArk (NASDAQ: CYBR) and the recent acquisition of Altair Semiconductors by the Sony Corporation. JVP is renowned for not only creating companies from seed and driving them through to exit by leveraging the team's strong technical and operational expertise, but also for the numerous financial transactions fund management led in several companies to further increase the group's stake and substantially increase the upside and exit value for the fund's investors. (http://www.jvpvc.com)

Contact: 

Pnina Ben-Ami  

Senior Director of Marketing, JVP

[email protected]

SOURCE Jerusalem Venture Partners (JVP)