In addition, new growth investors including iCON and TripActions' CEO and Co-founder Ariel Cohen joined the round. Theator, the creator of Surgical Intelligence, announced today that it has raised $24M in an extension of its Series A funding round. This extension follows an initial $15.5M Series A round announced in February 2021, bringing the round total to $39.5M.[FP1] Theator is pioneering Surgical Intelligence to eliminate the paradigm that where you live determines if you live. Theator's Surgical Intelligence Platform institutionalizes the routine capture of surgical video data, harnessing AI and computer vision to automatically analyze every operation.

When it comes to video-based data, advances in computer vision have given a huge boost to the world of research, making the process of analyzing and drawing insights from moving images something that is scalable beyond the limits of a small team of humans. A startup called Theator has been applying this concept to the world of healthcare: It's using AI to "read" video captured during operations, to look for best practices but also to help identify key moments when an operation may have taken the wrong turn. Today, it is announcing $24 million in funding -- a sign of how both the medical world is adapting and adopting advances in AI to improve its own work; and how investors are stepping up to bet on the opportunity ahead. The funding is a significant extension to Theator's Series A of $15.5 million from February 2021, bringing the total for the round to $39.5 million, and $42.5 million overall. As with the earlier tranche, Insight Partners led this latest investment. Previous backers Blumberg Capital, Mayo Clinic, NFX, StageOne Ventures, iAngels and former Netflix Chief Product Officer Neil Hunt also participated, alongside new backers iCON and Ariel Cohen, TripActions' CEO and co-founder.

Israel's tech and innovation ecosystem has had a monumental year so far in 2021, breaking funding records and yielding 10 new unicorns – private companies valued at $1 billion or more -- just in the first three months of the year, more than any country in Europe. Israeli high-tech activity on public markets also increased significantly this year, a trend reflected in the number of IPOs, SPAC (special-purpose acquisition company) transactions, and follow-on offerings. "Year in and year out, Tel Aviv's startup community has proven that it can achieve more than whole countries within its 52km2, thanks to investment in world-class research facilities, robust government support, and an ever-reliable influx of investment," writes WIRED UK Contributor Allyssia Alleyne in a new post this week highlighting 10 "hottest startups from Tel Aviv as part of the UK edition of the American tech publication's annual round-up (except in 2020) of Europe's 100 hottest startups. They include startups and companies from London, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Barcelona, Dublin, Helsinki, Berlin, Paris, and Lisbon. These 100 companies "are a cohort like no other," says Greg Williams, the deputy global editorial director of WIRED. "They survived an unprecedented year, embodying what entrepreneurial spirit is all about." The companies, featured in the September/October issue on newsstands this month, are not necessarily "the largest, best-known or most-funded," but they "are generating buzz" and they are organizations "people are talking about and inspired by," added Williams. The Tel Aviv entry is a mix of established companies with prominent backers, high-flying unicorns, and determined startups. Many operate in the deep tech sector. "Tel Aviv has long been known as a place where founders have built innovative companies in verticals such as fintech and cybersecurity.