Having discovered that few Chinese own an oven, Israel’s Ronen Mechanik launched Uga Uga (Uga = Hebrew for “cake”).  Chinese users order cake-baking kits for use in their rice cookers. 4,000 kits have already been sold since the website’s launch … Continue reading →

Israel’s Arkia Airlines is commencing regular flights to London Stanstead, Milan, Salonika and Sardinia. It has already begun flying to Belgrade. Air France is going to Tel Aviv from Nice and Bilbao and China’s Hainan Airlines is offering Beijing flights … Continue reading →

Israel’s Frutarom has made another acquisition in South Africa, buying Pretoria-based Unique Flavors for $6.7 million.  Unique’s African customers include in Ghana, Malawi, Zimbabwe and Mozambique. Unique’s operations will be merged with Frutarom’s existing Pretoria site. http://www.globes.co.il/en/article-frutarom-buys-south-african-flavors-company-1001176288

Israeli cloud infrastructure company Stratoscale has acquired Tesora, a database-as-a-service (DBaaS) provider, based in Massachusetts, USA.  Tesora’s database will help Statoscale customers move onto cloud-based systems. http://www.globes.co.il/en/article-stratoscale-buys-us-database-co-tesora-1001175783

I reported previously (here) about Israeli security code checker Checkmarx and its massive revenue growth.  Now Checkmarx is preparing an Initial Public Offering (IPO) on the US NASDAQ.  It has grown to 300 employees from 180 a year ago, and … Continue reading →

Microsoft and Qualcomm join the international investor partners of Israel’s Team8 – the venture fund formed by ex-IDF cybersecurity experts.  In addition, Citibank is becoming a non-investing partner. Existing partners include Cisco, AT&T, Accenture, Nokia and Mitsui. http://www.timesofisrael.com/microsoft-qualcomm-invest-in-israels-team8-cyber-effort/  

Israel’s budget deficit was only 2.1% of GDP at the end of 2016 compared to a target of 2.9%.  The reason was a NIS 9 billion under-estimate of state revenues. http://www.globes.co.il/en/article-budget-deficit-down-to-215-in-2016-1001170940

Israel’s sale of its largest-ever euro-denominated bonds was more than four times oversubscribed.  The Israeli government sold 1.5 billion euros ($1.6 billion) in 10-year debt and 750 million euros in 20-year bonds. Investors, however, were prepared to buy 9.8 billion … Continue reading →