This year, significant investment announcements from Israeli blockchain startups have cemented the nation as a global leader in the sector. Below, we delve into the prominent entities and substantial funding figures that have garnered attention in 2024.

Utila

Sector: Crypto Operations | Established: 2022 | Founders: Bentzi Rabi and Sam Eiderman | Funding: $11.5 million from NFX, Wing VC, Framework Ventures, and leading web3 and fintech VC funds and angel investors

Utila, a cutting-edge crypto operations platform for enterprises, recently secured $11.5 million in Seed funding from NFX, Wing VC, Framework Ventures, and other prominent web3 and fintech VC funds and angel investors, including Balaji Srinivasan, Charlie Songhurst, and Surojit Chatterjee. Utila’s platform empowers institutions and developers with a non-custodial, secure, and chain-agnostic wallet for managing digital assets. Currently, numerous leading institutional investors and crypto-native firms leverage Utila’s platform to handle billions of dollars in assets. Utila’s comprehensive self-custody wallet platform offers firms complete control over their digital assets across various blockchains such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, EVM chains, Solana, and more. The platform provides a robust wallet infrastructure that simplifies complexity without sacrificing security, powered by MPC key management, a self-serve policy engine, and a seamless user experience. Utila’s clientele includes top hedge funds, OTC desks, market makers, and prime brokers who use Utila for trading operations, as well as crypto-native entities like custodians, exchanges, and token issuers.

Lava Network

Sector: Blockchain | Established: 2023 | Founders: Yair Cleper and Gil Binder | Funding: $15 million from Jump Capital, Hashkey Capital, and Tribe Capital

Lava Network is developing a modular network to facilitate blockchain access for developers and users through RPC (Remote Procedure Call) and indexing. RPC is essential for web3 applications, allowing them to send and retrieve blockchain data, while indexing provides specialized data requests. Lava Network operates a permissionless, three-sided marketplace for blockchain data where consumers obtain data from Lava, RPC Node Providers join Lava, serve data, and receive rewards, and Champions add modules for Providers to serve, extending Lava to high-demand chains and APIs. Future plans for Lava include applying its modular approach to oracles, sequencing, and other data infrastructures, establishing itself as a comprehensive store for any web3 service. Since its launch in October 2023, Lava has formed partnerships with NEAR, Evmos, Axelar, Starknet, Koii, Agoric, and more.

Fhenix

Sector: Blockchain | Established: 2023 | Founders: Guy Zyskind | Funding: $22 million total from Hack VC with contributions from Dao5, Amber Group, Primitive, GSR, Collider, and Stake Capital

Fhenix, specializing in confidentiality-enabling Layer 2 blockchain powered by fully homomorphic encryption, announced the closing of a $15 million Series A funding round led by Hack VC, with participation from Dao5, Amber Group, Primitive, GSR, Collider, and Stake Capital, among others. This brings the project’s total funding to $22 million. The funds will support the initial phase of its open testnet, Helium, allowing developers to deploy smart contracts on the Fhenix network for the first time. Fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) is an innovative form of cryptography that permits data computation without decryption. Fhenix is the first blockchain to integrate FHE natively, delivering an EVM-compatible smart contract platform where developers can encrypt their Solidity-based applications using familiar tools without needing prior knowledge of FHE encryption. Fhenix recently partnered with EigenLayer to develop FHE Coprocessors, enabling host chains, whether Ethereum, L2s, or L3s, to offload specific computational tasks to a designated processor, allowing developers on any EVM-compatible chain to integrate encrypted computation into their application logic.

Oobit

Sector: Crypto Mobile Payments | Established: 2017 | Founders: Amram Adar and Aharon Miller | Funding: $25 million from Tether, CMCC Global’s Titan Fund, 468 Capital, and Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko

Oobit, an Israeli-founded crypto mobile payment app, recently raised $25 million in Series A funding to support its expansion plans and advance cryptocurrency adoption as a payment method. Oobit’s app enables crypto holders to make payments at over 100 million retailers globally where Visa and Mastercard are accepted, with merchants receiving fiat currency. Headquartered in Singapore, Oobit was co-founded in 2017 by CEO Amram Adar and COO Aharon Miller. The company plans to expand into the Asia Pacific, United Arab Emirates, Canada, and Australia, beyond its primary markets in the European Union and UK. The funds will be used to integrate external wallets and accelerate the development of a Web3 gateway.

WaveBL

Sector: Blockchain | Established: 2015 | Founders: Gadi Ruschin, Or Garbash, Yair Sappir | Funding: $37 million from NewRoad Capital Partners, ZIM, Marius Nacht, Contour Venture Partners, Frank Sica, and Techstars Central LLC

WaveBL is a digital platform leveraging proprietary blockchain technology to electronically transfer trade documents. The platform enables the instant, encrypted, and authenticated transfer of electronic Bills of Lading and related trade documents, complying with universal processes and regulations. Designed to meet the needs of all parties involved in trade, including shipping companies, agents, brokers, and banks, WaveBL’s platform facilitates efficient and secure transactions in the trade industry.