Genesis

Tag: Environmental Sustainability

  • Cultivating Innovation for a Better World

    Cultivating Innovation for a Better World

    Ingenuity and innovation are flourishing throughout our society, encompassing everything from how multinationals build out their global operations to enhancing the comforts we can afford in our everyday lives. Whether the latest incorporation of AI has enhanced the production line or improved the fluidity of your digital assistant, the drive behind innovation has always been to create and apply solutions to meaningful problems.

    For Genesis Club member Dave Wolf, providing the foundation for these disruptive technologies is key to solving previously insurmountable problems, influencing change in our lives, and shaping a better future. As co-founder and managing partner of Pollen Innovation Group, Dave focuses on nurturing brilliant entrepreneurs and impactful innovations that contribute to the well-being of our environment and humanity.

    Established in 2020, the Pollen Innovation Group is an investment group that has successfully redefined the metrics of investment success by weaving social responsibility into its ethos. Operating under the guiding principle that investments should generate meaningful returns for investors, society, and the environment, the Pollen Innovation Group has become a vital force in the world.

    These principles are encapsulated by their Return-on-Happiness (ROH) model for gauging performance. Defined as “Good for People, Good for the Planet, Good for ROI,” the Pollen Innovation Group’s ROH framework integrates environmental, social, and governance (ESG) criteria into their investment decisions. 

    Assaf Bivas, managing partner at Pollen Innovation Group stated, “By prioritizing people, planet, and profit, we believe we can unlock a new paradigm of value creation. Our ROH framework goes beyond traditional financial metrics to measure the holistic impact of our investments.” He continued. “By considering factors like social equity, environmental sustainability, and good governance, we’re not just maximizing returns for our investors, but also driving positive change in the world.”

    This follows recent evidence suggesting a correlation between the integration of ESG principles into portfolios and a 10 percent lower cost of capital. Over a four-year study period, companies with high ESG scores, on average, experienced lower costs of capital compared to companies with poor ESG scores in both developed and emerging markets. Opting to evaluate their business outcomes from this fresh perspective, the investor ecosystem fostered at the Pollen Group believes that potential returns over the longer term can be increased by broadening their perspective. 

    To certify that investments are suitable for people, the planet, and ROI, Pollen Innovation Group’s “Venture Garden” model brings together groundbreaking initiatives that meet the previously unmet needs of millions around the world to generate a measurable impact on communities and for Earth. Their portfolio spans diverse sectors, including sustainable technology, healthcare innovation, and biotech. This breadth allows Pollen Innovation Group to support solutions addressing some of the most pressing global challenges, from climate change to public health.

    Their investments include KIP Medical, a company that pioneers biotech-based oral care, and ODE Pharma, which develops innovative treatments for respiratory and pulmonary disorders. Another notable investment is Kenaf Ventures, an advanced cleantech company transforming CO2 emissions into advanced biomaterials for various industries. These companies embody the group’s mission to address unfulfilled needs and promote sustainability.

    Asaf Ofer, managing partner at Pollen Innovation Group, affirmed “The success of our portfolio companies is a testament to the power of our investment model. KIP Medical and ODE Pharma are already making significant strides in improving oral and respiratory health, respectively, while Kenaf Ventures is leading the way in sustainable material innovation. These achievements not only demonstrate the commercial viability of our investments but also highlight their positive impact on human well-being and the environment.”

    Their work underscores the growing importance of impact investing in today’s financial landscape. As more firms recognize the value of integrating ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) criteria into their investment strategies, the pioneering efforts of groups like Pollen Innovation become even more critical.

    The Pollen Innovation Group offers a compelling blueprint for those looking to understand the future of responsible investing. Their unwavering commitment to balancing profit with purpose sets a high standard and serves as an inspiring model for the financial community in the future.

    To learn more, visit the Pollen Group website.

  • Nigel Kneafsey: Entrepreneur Urges Humanitarian Efforts in Israel

    Nigel Kneafsey: Entrepreneur Urges Humanitarian Efforts in Israel

    Founder and CEO of Pherros Biosciences, Nigel Kneafsey, works in the rapidly evolving landscape of the life science industry, surrounded by competitive companies endeavoring tirelessly to innovate and revolutionize the way drugs and medical supplies are developed, manufactured, and delivered. As the driving force behind Pherros Biosciences, he utilizes his expertise in supply chain management and commitment to enhancing access to life-saving medicines to reshape the industry standard approach to production and delivery at Pherros. 

    At the core of Pherros Biosciences lies its robust supply chain capabilities. Nigel Kneafsey and his team recognize the critical importance of a well-managed supply chain to efficiently and reliably serve the healthcare sector. Pherros proudly supports organizations dedicated to improving access to life-saving medicines, ensuring a seamless flow from synthesis to fulfillment.

    Under Nigel Kneafsey’s leadership, Pherros Biosciences continues to empower life science organizations through its comprehensive suite of services. These services encompass the entire drug development lifecycle, including synthesis, analysis, and delivery. Pherros ensures that pharmaceutical companies, research institutions, and healthcare organizations have the resources and support required to efficiently bring their critical innovations to market.

    Previously founder and CEO of Options Technology, Nigel Kneafsey established his first company in 1993 with the goal of becoming a globally recognized provider of outsourced IT services to the investment banking industry. Now, three decades on, Kneafsey has proven his ability as a leader and entrepreneur, taking his first company to become a top provider of IT infrastructure to global Capital Markets firms and now taking Pherros Biosciences to similar heights.

    Under Kneafsey’s directive, Options provided high-performance managed trading infrastructure and cloud-enabled managed services to over 200 firms globally, including leading global investment banks, hedge funds, and proprietary trading firms. From his position as CEO, Kneafsey focused on maintaining and improving a culture of employee fulfillment and environmental sustainability at Options, which he noted as imperative to long-term success. Employing hundreds of individuals across his career, Kneafsey has developed a concentrated ESG focus surrounding reducing energy usage, improving workplace culture and diversity, and instituting recycling programs in its offices.

    Throughout Kneafsey’s tenure as CEO, he successfully mitigated the carbon footprint produced by the data centers operated by Options while simultaneously partnering with a number of green-certified facilities. The firm also consistently provided various employee-focused schemes that encouraged learning and training with certification schemes, in turn providing substantial upward mobility for every worker and rewarding exceptional performance. Armed with a vault of knowledge gained throughout his career, Kneafsey has brought his unique ESG focus to Pherros Biosciences and Genesis Business Humanity Club.

    Outside of his position as CEO, Kneafsey utilizes his vast knowledge at the forefront of the industry to guide his organization and offer expertise while also exerting positive changes throughout the wider society. Now incorporated as a proud member of the Genesis Club, Kneafsey has worked with us tirelessly to aid humanitarian efforts in Israel during this difficult period. 

    Exemplifying the generous disposition of a Genesis Club member, we are proud to be announcing Nigel Kneafsey as an honoree at the RED South Beach, Miami, event on October 26th. During this time, it is critically important for respected business leaders and philanthropists such as Kneafsey to stand up and use their networks to aid in delivering life-changing resources to those who need them most.

  • Israel’s Rich History of Technological Innovation: Ten Inventions That Changed the World for the Better

    Israel’s Rich History of Technological Innovation: Ten Inventions That Changed the World for the Better

    The success of Israel’s “Innovation Nation” has been stunning. Consider the facts:

    • Number of Israeli Noble Prize Winners: 13
    • 2022 Investments in Israeli Tech Start-ups: $17 billion
    • Number of Israeli unicorns (private companies valued at over $1 billion): over 70 and counting.
    • Number of Israeli companies listed on the Nasdaq Exchange: 91 with a total market cap of over $116 billion. (Israel has the third most companies listed on the NASDAQ, after the United States and China).
    • Number of multinational corporations with offices in Israel: over 300 benefitting from Israel’s renowned R&D capabilities.

    Beginning in the 1960s, the Israeli government supported R&D in the defense industry, aligned with its mandatory military service, and out of the work associated with the Israeli Defense Force (IDF). 

    In the late 1980s, the government established the Office of the Chief Scientist in the Ministry of Economy, which in 2016 became the Israel Innovation Authority (IIA), an independent but government-funded agency.

    Today, the IIA offers a wide variety of support, ranging from “incubators” for the initial stages of innovation to providing training and seed money to connecting startups with funders in Israel and overseas, while exceptional non-profits like Start-Up Nation are using technology to match entrepreneurs with partners and funders, with an impressive track record (which you can access here).

    Israel’s academic institutions continue to play a strategic role, with universities including Hebrew University, the Technion and the Weizmann Institute ranked among the top in the world. These universities have educated tens of thousands of startup founders in Israel’s high-tech sector as well as its scientists and engineers. 

    Genesis Business Humanity’s team has created this list of ten of our favorite social impact companies born in Israel which are actively protecting people and the planet, while driving prosperity for bold entrepreneurs and committed teams.

    1.

    Iron Dome

    Iron Dome detects incoming short-range rockets and shells, assesses the threat, and dispatches a high-speed missile to intercept and destroy anything determined to be a danger.  Developed by two Israeli firms—Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and Israel Aerospace Industries with support from the United States, the system has thwarted approximately 97% of missiles launched to strike Israeli population centers by Hamas and Hezbollah since it was introduced in 2011.

    2.

    Waze

    In 2006, Israeli entrepreneurs Ehud Shabtai, Amir Shinar and Uri Levine developed a commercial-free digital database to help drivers shorten travel times around Israel. Today it is Waze, the real-time driving app now owned by Google and used by 140 million people a month worldwide. Users report traffic accidents, road hazards, police activity, street events and even gas prices. Waze then uses the data to constantly update its maps and offer increasingly accurate recommendations which lead to safer driving which can save lives.

    3.

    Pillcam

    A tiny camera inside a swallowed capsule the size of a jellybean takes pictures of a patient’s bowel that are transmitted via sensors attached to their abdomen. Pillcam, a noninvasive method for diagnosing diseases of the digestive system that are often missed by painful traditional methods including colonoscopies was invented by Israeli engineer Gavrial Iddan and Israeli gastroenterologist Eitan Scapa.

    4.

    Rewalk

    After a 1997 car accident left him a quadriplegic, Israeli entrepreneur Amit Goffer invented the ReWalk robotic exoskeleton. Available for home use since 2014, the ReWalk “exo-suit” features motorized joints and a computerized system that allows the wearer to stand, walk and climb stairs. While the ReWalk suit is expensive (upwards of $70K), it is in use in some hospitals for patients recovering from strokes and spinal cord injuries. 

    5.

    ESGgo

    ESGgo is an AI-based “sustainability operating platform.” A SaaS powered by AI, it provides different tools for public companies and consulting firms. With ESGgo teams can strategize, examine, report and operate programs efficiently and cost-effectively.  in a highly fast and cost-effective way.

    6.

    Conflu3nce Health AI (CHAI)

    Conflu3nce/Conflu3nce Health AI’s healthcare agenda focuses on developing personalized, user-centric evaluation metrics: biomarkers of change that can support early detection of disease for vulnerable and at-risk populations. Healthcare practices changed with the pandemic, engaging consumers, shifting point-of-care to telehealth, and recognizing acute and historical service gaps.

    7.

    Effectivate

    With a mission to empower seniors and preserve quality of life, Effectivate sets a new standard for computerized-brain-training in the neuro-wellness and AgeTech arenas. By providing cutting edge memory training for older adults and helping them maintain their cognitive abilities and quality of life, the company contributes to advances in medicine and innovation, With age, many physical abilities decline, including cognitive abilities such as memory and attention.

    8.

    AIVF

    Founded and headed by clinical embryologist Daniella Gilboa, AIVF uses artificial intelligence (AI) to guide the embryo selection process when retrieving and choosing eggs for fertilization. This June, AIVF completed a $25 million investment round to expand the use of its main software platform, called EMA, an acronym for Embryology Management Assistant—and the Hebrew word for mother.

    9.

    Gabriel Network

    Formerly Blue Systems, the Gabriel Network is an Israeli startup that created a “smart panic button” for crisis management during violent incidents like school shootings and terror attacks. The company has seen demand for its advanced security software rise significantly in recent years among companies and organizations in the private sector. Yoni Sherizen, the co-founder of Gabriel Network says the solution has already been rolled out across a double-digit number of Jewish institutions in the US including synagogues and community centers over the past three years, and that the company has been expanding to many more communities, businesses, educational institutions and more in North America.

    10.

    Hortica

    Hortica is an Israeli company that develops and manufactures technologies for precision horticulture. Their proprietary “environment within an environment” aims to bring sustainability, resilience, and stability to full-spectrum local food security. Hortica has developed an automatic device that allows cannabis growers to control crops using sensors, providing the highest quality buds required for pharmaceutical grade medical cannabis, used to treat pain more effectively, safely, and economically than opiods and other traditional options.

    We’d love to hear from you if you have a story to share about more inspiring start-ups in Israel. Contact our editor, Arti Loftus, here. (form)

  • GENESIS COMPANY Spotlight: Yaniv BenHaim Founder and CEO of New Photonics

    GENESIS COMPANY Spotlight: Yaniv BenHaim Founder and CEO of New Photonics

    With cloud growth surging, the impact of Generative AI, and the future of quantum computing growing closer to reality, hyperscale data centers are under pressure to support real time computing at a scale many could never have imagined.

    The cloud computing market value reached USD 545.8 billion in 2022, but experts predict the market will grow at a CAGR of 17.9 percent, with estimates putting the market value at USD 1,240.9 billion by the end of 2027.

    The rapid growth in cloud computing is breaking all records, and outpacing even the most optimistic growth forecasts, as more cloud devices and applications require higher-speed computational power.

    The rising cost of energy has magnified the problem as cloud computing giants including AWS, Microsoft, Google, IBM, Alibaba, and other major players around the world.

    Furthermore, hyperscale data centers are harming the environment and facing increasing regulatory pressure to reduce carbon emissions and the consumption of electricity. For both financial and sustainability reasons, cloud computing enterprises have increasingly begun to look for ways to be more energy efficient, and among the most promising new technologies os silicon photonic (SiPh), all-optic processing chips.

    SiPh all-optic chips can help enable, extend, and increase data transmissions, as well as facilitate all-optical computing. This method uses light waves produced by lasers or incoherent sources for data processing, data storage or data communication for computing, which offers advantages such as low power consumption, high computational speed, large information storage, and inherent parallelism that cannot be rivaled by its electronic counterpart.

    NewPhotonics Inc, a fabless chip startup and developer of a silicon photonic alternative to Complementary Metal-Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) technology used in most of today’s integrated circuits, has been funded in part by Genesis Business Humanity Club, and continues to receive guidance and business development support from team.

    Their first-in-market optical gearbox, supporting the demand for 224G and 448G per lane signaling rates required for AI-based applications, including the explosive Generative AI domain, and other data intensive compute.

    Established in 2020, with funding from AWZ Ventures, the European Innovation Council, the Israeli Innovation Authority, NextLeap Ventures, Trirec VC, Vahoca and the founding team, NewPhotonics has created a breakthrough micro processing photonic chip with the potential to immediately solve the most acute challenge hyperscale data center operators and others face.

    The growth in energy consumption and inability to scale to meet demand is well-documented, and with an All-Optic chip that works within existing infrastructure, replacement of power-hungry and costly electronic chips has arrived.

    The company has been developing a range of chips which will dramatically reduce energy consumption, increase the speed of processing massive amounts of data, and lower operating costs for OEMs, data center operators, and cloud and network service providers.

    “NewPhotonics products enable end-to-end optical connectivity, significantly reduce power consumption, and address the pressing need to address exponential data rate growth and high processing power demands for AI applications, all at a lower total cost of ownership,” said Founder and CEO Yaniv BenHaim, who is also an active Member of Genesis Club. “Our approach will make a substantial contribution to reversing climate change, while supporting advanced innovations including generative AI applications, and will unlock value to the global tech community for decades to come. We are just at the beginning of this revolution, and proud to be pioneers, with over 50 patents in process.”

    New Photonics silicon technology represents an all-optic paradigm shift with fabless chips by using photons versus electrons. The benefits are significant:

    • Speed of Light performance
    • 80% cost reduction
    • 50%-90% energy savings
    • Designed to easily scale
    • Future proof approach
    • Uses existing infrastructure
    • Matures existing foundries

    New Photonics has the potential to save 400 thousand metric tons of CO2e by 2027 during the initial market entry period, by replacing just a fraction of the chips in the market, according to studies conducted by the company.

    Scaling to 1.6 GBps is challenging, but New Photonics has met that challenge with technology that works with existing infrastructure, including 112G/224G PAM4 SERDES and 112G/224G optical Modulators and PDs, while reducing power consumption. Their products can run in existing mechanics (OSFP-XD/1600), and their ultra-high bandwidth PiC design is based on CPO Chip-to-Chip communications, with 3.2Tbps single light sources and proprietary signal modulation.

    The global silicon photonics market reached USD 1.49 billion by the end of 2022, with experts estimating a CAGR of 23.23 percent, bringing the predicted market value to USD 3.44 billion by 2026. However, with the cloud also set to grow, these numbers may certainly increase, and cloud computing organizations continue to adopt and implement SiPh technology to reduce energy consumption, for both their own, and the environment’s benefit.