Israel Active

The Federation of the Israeli Chambers of Commerce (FICC) is promoting business matchmaking for Israeli companies.  Here is March’s edition of its members' business offers. All are looking for new business partners, distributors, representation or suppliers.

The Binational Industrial Research & Development (BIRD) Energy program is making available an additional $4 million to fund joint US-Israeli clean innovative energy technology initiatives. Candidate projects can be submitted until Aug 2021.

El Al’s 8th March flight from Tel Aviv to New York carried 280 passengers of which 168 were fully vaccinated. The others, mostly children under 16, took a rapid Covid-19 test developed by Israel’s Sheba Medical Center that gave the results 15-20 minutes later.  Everyone passed the test.

Aleph Farms (reported previously) is partnering Brazil’s BRF, one of the largest meat producers in the world, to jointly develop cultivated meat and bring it to Brazilian tables. Livestock production causes high emissions of greenhouse gas, which Brazil must cut by 43% by 2030.

raised ; raised ; raised ; raised ; raised ; raised ; raised ; raised ; raised ; raised ; raised ;

Israel’s Aqua Security (reported previously) has just raised $135 million at a market valuation of $1 billion.  This makes it another Israeli company with the financial status of a “Unicorn”.

PayPal is to acquire Israeli crypto security Curv (reported previously) for nearly $200 million. Curv will join PayPal's newly formed blockchain, crypto and digital currencies business unit.

Just three months after acquiring Denver-based Juniper Labs, Israel’s Next Insurance is buying another US company - digital insurance agency AP Intego. The acquisition will double Next’s annual revenue to some $400 million, add 160 employees to its current 400 payroll and bring in 75,000 new customers.

The recent IVC report on the Israeli tech ecosystem from 2015 to 2020 reveals that Covid-19 hit the Startup Nation hard in the first half of 2020. But investments bounced back in the second half, so that 2020 investment in Israel exceeded 2019 by 31%.  And the key reasons were very encouraging.

Israel’s reserves of foreign currency reached another record level at the end of February. The total of just over $185 billion was $5.59 billion more than the total at the end of January.