Israel Active

Israel’s Windward (reported previously) has partnered four major maritime companies plus seven member Clubs, including The American Club, Britannia P&I, and Steamship. Windward’s predictive AI platform will give liability coverage to almost 65% of the world’s maritime trade.

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Haifa-based Pico (not the Jerusalem Pico) has developed technology to turn engaged, anonymous sports and entertainment fans into marketable customers. It is working with 60 global sports teams such as LA Clippers and Borussia Dortmund. It has just joined the SAP.io foundry in Munich.

Israel’s MASSIVit 3D (reported previously) has won a contract to supply Italy’s Biesse Group with 20 to 40 3D printers annually.  The deal is said to be worth $60 - $80 million over 5 years. MASSIVit will also work on combining its technology with Biesse’s computer numerical control system.

Israel’s Gilat Satellite Networks, through its subsidiary Wavestream, has received multi-million-dollar orders from the US Department of Defense (DoD). Wavestream's 50W Ka-band military Block Upconverter (BUC) will power the DoD military communications program.

U.S. chip giant Intel has purchased Jerusalem-based startup Cnvrg.io for a reported price of $60 million. Cnvrg, develops a service for managing, speeding up, and scaling data science workflows, enabling clients to quickly develop, test, deploy, and refine machine learning models.

Retail giant Amazon is recruiting 150 more employees for its research centers and offices in Tel Aviv, Haifa, and Herzliya. This will raise its workforce in Israel to 1,300. Amazon’s General Manager said it “will enable us to tap into the amazing technology talent pool here in Israel”.

Financial giant Citi has begun the 10th cohort of Citi Accelerator TLV, its program for Israeli startups in the fintech, cyber, and data space. There have been more than 100 participants of its accelerator since it was launched in 2013. Those startups have since raised more than $1.3 billion of funds.

Israel’s IDI Insurance has partnered Japan’s Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance (MSI) to establish an innovation hub in Israel. “The HUB”, soon be renamed “GDH TLV” will focus on finding and fostering startups that help the direct and digital insurance sector.

A group of 13 Israeli company CEOs have just completed a four-day trip to the UAE organized by Jerusalem Venture Partners. Israeli companies represented included Agrint (pest sensing), , and ,