Israel Active

Israel’s Cheq (see previously) has joined the Unicorn club by raising $150 million at a valuation of $1 billion.

Danish toymaker Lego has announced plans to open its first store dedicated to Legos in Tel Aviv “before the summer”.  There are 628 Lego stores worldwide, planned and designed by Lego in a consistent way. Israeli stores will be identical to those overseas.

Israel’s Innovation Authority has awarded a total of NIS 500 million to five Israeli incubators operating in the fields of health tech, food tech, space tech and energy. Startups operating in each incubator will each receive up to NIS 6.5 million per project. It will promote early-stage technical projects.

Google is investing $25 million over 5 years, to extend its existing initiatives for attracting minorities to Israel’s hi-tech sector. They include Adva, a two-year computer science training program for Jewish seminary girls, and a new Tsofen program to integrate Arab engineering students.

Mashreq Bank in the United Arab Emirates is to use the fraud detection tools of Israel’s ThetaRay (see previously) to secure cross-border payments between financial institutions. Mashreq is the Emirates’ oldest private banking institution and ThetaRay’s first UAE customer.

Israel to begin exporting gas to Egypt via Jordan. The new route, in addition to the existing Ashkelon-El Arish pipeline, will increase current 5 billion cubic meters of gas exports to Egypt by more than 50% It will generate an extra NIS 100 million of annual revenue.

Fitch Ratings has reaffirmed Israel’s A+ rating with a stable outlook. It noted the huge 8.1% increase in GDP for 2021, and a reduced budget deficit from 11.4% of GDP in 2020 to 4.5% in 2021.

Israel's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew by 8.1% in 2021, beating the Bank of Israel forecast of 7.5% and the OECD forecast (see previously) of 6.3%. GDP in Q4 was over 16%.

Israel’s Cloudinary has just raised its first funds at a valuation of $2 billion. Cloudinary allows users to “quickly and easily create, manage, and deliver their digital experiences across any browser, device, and bandwidth”. I don’t understand that either, but 9,000 customers and a million developers do.

raised ; raised ; raised ; raised ; raised ; raised ; raised ; raised ; (volunteering) raised ; raised ; raised ; raised ;