Israel Active

Israel’s LivePerson surveyed its 1,300 employees and the vast majority said they preferred to work from home. So LivePerson has adopted a full work from home (WFH) model until a vaccine to Covid-19 is found. It will now forgo its office real-estate rentals, saving it $12-15 million a year.

The Covid-19 pandemic has resulted in many skilled Israeli hi-tech employees being made redundant. This has encouraged many Israeli companies to actively recruit the newly available skilled staff. Before the current crisis there was a shortage of some 15,000 IT employees in Israel.

Artlist ; ; Codefresh ; ; Simply Speak ; Hunters Cybersecurity ; Upsolver ; Spike ; Global-e Online ; InterCure ; ; InnoCan ; Curv ; ;

Israel’s Artlist develops and offers content, including video, photos, music, and sound effects to content creators, who pay through monthly subscriptions. This media can then be used in videos and video games without worrying about copyright or other legal issues.

Israel’s Healthy.io (reported previously) has acquired its U.S. competitor, Inui Health, for $9 million. Both companies develop and market FDA-approved analysis kits for home monitoring of the progress of Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD). The takeover gives Healthy.io a stronger US presence.

Israeli insure-tech company Lemonade has just completed a listing on the New York Stock exchange. Its share price at the start of trading was $29. By the end of the day, the share price was over $69 – a 139% increase.

The Israel-U.S. BIRD (Binational Industrial R&D) Foundation is offering to fund 50% (up to $1 million) of the budget for advanced tech projects in homeland security. These include for anti-cybercrime, critical infrastructure, border protection, UAVs, and first responder security.

The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE) has launched an English version of its MAYA website. It will report corporate disclosures of its 436 TASE-listed companies and is part of its program to make the exchange more accessible to foreign investors.

The first stage of the "Silicon Wadi" project is underway. The initiative is designed to set up industrial and business zones in the eastern half of Jerusalem. 200,000 sqm of commercial space should result in 10,000 new jobs and increase Arab participation in the hi-tech workplace.

Six Israeli firms were listed by the World Economic Forum (WEF) among its 100 New Technology Pioneers in 2020. They are , , , , and . Israel was the only country in the Middle East to be represented in the WEF list.