A couple of months back, a jewel in the Israeli cleantech crown raised some additional funds (some even coming from Sir Richard Branson).  GreenRoad Technologies, with development in Or Yehuda, employs a in-vehicle device that improves driver safety and betters fuel consumption for car fleets. Read Cleantech-Israel’s review of the deal as well.

I’m reading the article and it looks great.  GreenRoad’s Safety Center, the firm’s flagship product, seems to be getting traction with fleet operators and insurance firms, looking to decrease accidents and improve efficiencies.  While GreenRoad is doing wonderful things for Israeli Cleantech and kudos to them, I’m struck with that fact that Pointer Telocation (PNTR), whose Chairman, investor Yossi Ben Shalom, we interviewed a few months ago, is not a player in this space.

Pointer has an interesting business.  While providing road-side services in Israel and abroad, Pointer provides a lot of location-based services for the auto industry.  Via RF-systems, the firm can locate autos.  Via cellular units, the company has essentially combined GPS and GPRS systems with embedded software together in on box.  They also have an impressive command and control system that allows for fleet management and stolen vehicle recovery (SVR).

With a install base and global sales, why isn’t Pointer forging ahead beyond SVR and into more value-added service like GreenRoad is providing?  Maybe a partnership is in order?

Disclaimer: Author’s fund holds a position in PNTR as of 7/27/2008.

Zack Miller
IsraelNewsletter.com

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Egged, Israel’s largest bus lines and one of the largest bus companies in the world, announced this morning a launch of a very innovative service through Google’s personalized homepage gadgets, iGoogle.  Egged recently launched its 2800 program, a service that allows passengers to use SMS to request up-to-date schedule information as well as information regarding which bus lines to use for specific trips.  This new service provides the same information via a search box embedded into iGoogle.

According to Globes, “Examples of wording in free text queries are “from Tel Aviv to the Teddy Stadium, Jerusalem;” “From Kanion Hazahav Rishon LeZion to Rishonim railway station;” “Bus No. 1 Jerusalem, tomorrow evening,” and so on. The information will be provided from Egged’s passenger information service and will be identical to the response to someone who sends a query by SMS, searches for information on the company’s own website, or contacts the call center in person.”

High tech meets low tech.  Next time 300 passengers are clamoring to hop on a bus that seats 60 from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv, they’ll be happy they have SMS or iGoogle access to find out when the next bus leaves.

Zack Miller
IsraelNewsletter.com

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The entire interview with Xenia’s Anat Segal is part of our new subscription newsletter, Israel Opportunity Investor. You can find out more about the product and the opportunities we cover at www.israelnewsletter.com.

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Please tell us about Xenia?
Anat Segal, CEO: Xenia is an investment firm founded in mid-2003 by a group of entrepreneurs with the vision of being an incubation powerhouse, engaged in the initiation and building of successful high-tech companies in the areas of IT and medical devices. I would say that there are two main similarities we share with traditional Venture Capital (VC) firms.  We invest in startups in return for equity, and the terms of our deals are similar.

What are the differences?
AS: One of the differences is that our investments are in really, really early stage companies. What are   typically referred to as seed and pre-seed stage deals. We establish the company alongside the entrepreneur. Our money is typically the first money in the firm. Sometimes there is friend-and-family round.  We are first and foremost an investment firm. We base ourselves on the unique structure of the Israeli incubator model. (Continue »)

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Jacada (JCDA) signs another material deal — this time it’s a follow-on deal with Nationwide Insurance.  According to the release, “This most recent contract extends the use of the Jacada solution to the Property and Casualty Direct Sales and Service group, to further automate and simplify access to customer, policy and billing information.”

Defense contractor Elbit Systems (ESLT) signed a $20 million deal to supply its Hermes unmanned air vehicles (UAV) to an unnamed European country.  The agreement is for air vehicles and ground systems to be delivered in 2009, according to Reuters.

Motorola, a strategic partner of NICE Systems (NICE), announced the receipt of an order on behalf of Denmark’s Interior Ministry.  The order is for an integration of NICE Inform, the firm’s multi-media incident information management solution in an effort to consolidate radio-over-IP content from the Danish public safety network.

Speaking of NICE, NICE’s Actimize division also announced a deal with partner Unisys in Singapore which would have Actimize’s transaction surveillance system installed at Singapore’s largest financial institution, DBS.  Actimize’s system analyzes transactions and recognizes potentially suspicious patterns across a bank’s product channels.  DBS is the first bank in Asia to install such a system on an end-to-end, cross-border, and bank-wide basis.

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