Israel Active

After a decade’s absence, Israeli McDonald's (which includes kosher branches) is relaunching falafel in pita breads. Customers will be able to purchase a McFalafel, McKebab or crispy chicken in a mini pita with tehina (tahini), lettuce, tomato, onion and pickles. It will have plenty of competition though.

From 1st July, individual tourists will be able to enter Israel subject to providing a SARS-CoV-2 vaccination certificate and various pre & post arrival tests.

Anti-BDS news - investment in Israeli startups so far in 2021 has beaten the total for the whole of last year. Investment up to 8th Jun totaled $10.5 billion compared to $10 billion for all of 2020 (also a great year). It includes 30 investment rounds of over $100 million (only 21 in all of 2020).

Israeli project management firm monday.com (see previously) completed its Nasdaq IPO, raising $574 million at a valuation of some 7 billion - one of Israel’s largest tech listings. With offices in 8 major global cities, monday.com reports having 120,000 customers in more than 190 countries.

The US-Israel Bi-national Agricultural Research and Development (BARD) Fund (see previously) is investing $6.7 million in 20 joint US-Israel projects. They focus on irrigation, harvesting, disease control, plant nutrition, production efficiency, food & water quality and safety.

Having established ICL Innovation in 2012, Israel’s ICL (see previously) has now launched ICL Planet Startup Hub. It says its mission is to propel food-tech and ag-tech startups to the marketplace. It seeks to empower pilot-ready startups to work with ICL and implement their technologies.

Israeli cybersecurity giant CyberArk has inaugurated its new R&D center at the Gav-Yam Negev Tech Park in Beersheva. It will be close to Israel’s Cyber Directorate’s CERT center, IDF’s C4I unit, Ben Gurion University and more than 70 development centers and startups.

Israel’s Elbit Systems UK has won an £11.5 million ($16 million) contract from the UK Ministry of Defence to provide the UK Armed Forces with XACT Night Vision Goggles (NVG). Elbit’s XACT systems are used in several NATO countries, including Germany and the Netherlands.

Israel’s Avo supplies products to New Yorkers and Tel Avivians. It has contracts with large companies and owners of large buildings. When employees or tenants order products, Avo consolidates the orders and delivers them to the company or building location, with no shipping fees.

Great article about Israel’s Adam Kima who founded PayMe after his previous business crashed due to the lack of payment facilities. Now PayMe’s platform provides own-branded fintech services to companies of all sizes. It is now expanding its services to European clients.