Israel Active

On 19 Aug, the founder of Israeli Mapped in NY, Guy Franklin rang the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange. He was joined on the podium by twelve founders of Israeli tech companies. The 450 Israeli-founded companies in New York include 30 unicorns. These 30 alone have created 15,000 jobs.

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Johnson & Johnson is to acquire Israeli medical device maker  for up to . Israel’s has Europe’s Screena. US-based Applied Systems Israel’s  .

The AI voice bot from Israel’s Hi Auto (see previously) is to be used to handle customer orders at hundreds of Bojangles drive-thrus. Bojangles has dubbed the technology “Bo-Linda”, which has already been implemented in over 50 of its restaurants.

Multinational Energean has announced that it will invest $1.2 billion to develop the Katlan gas field off Israel’s Mediterranean coast. It expects output to commence in 2027.  The field contains 1.10 trillion cubic feet of proven and probable gas reserves.

US gian Palo Alto Networks increased its annual revenue by 16% to $8 billion fueled by two Israeli-based Next Generation System (NGS) products - the Cortex division and the Prisma Cloud division. Annual NGS revenue was $4.2 billion representing a 43% growth rate.

Israelis will soon be able to choose which supplier to purchase electricity from, breaking the decades-old monopoly of the Israel Electric Company, Discounts on electricity bills could reach 20%, resulting in total savings to consumers of up to NIS 2 billion.

The InNegev Innovation Hub (see  previously) is an incubator for startups developing climate tech solutions. It has attracted startups including , and , but supports startups across Israel. Partners include Netafim, the Israel Charitable Association, Alpha Capital and Lamed Holdings.

Proving how crucial Israel’s hi-tech sector is to Israel’s economy, new data from the Innovation Authority reports that in 2021, high-tech workers and companies contributed 36% of the nation’s income tax revenue. Recent years are certain to show even higher relative value.

Israel’s Wiz may have rejected a $23 million takeover offer from Google, but it said “that will do nicely” to a multi-million dollar investment from Japan’s SoftBank. Wiz recently recruited dozens of employees in Japan, Singapore, Australia, and New Zealand, and established a new data center in Sydney.