Israel Active

Israel’s largest multinational, Intel, exported $6.6 billion of Israeli products in 2019 – a huge 70% increase on its $3.9 billion in 2018. Much was due to its new Kiryat Gat factory reaching full production. Intel now has some 13,700 employees in Israel, including 900 who work for Mobileye.

Israeli-based Tnuva (owned by China’s Bright Foods) has partnered with Israel’s Seebo to help it adopt AI and IoT (Internet of Things) technology. Seebo turns existing machinery into smart, connected systems, which Tnuva believes can revolutionize the dairy industry.

Computer giant Cisco has led an $8.6 million funding round in Israel’s SeaLights Technologies. SeaLights offers a cloud-based software testing automation service designed to identify and prevent untested code changes. The company lists Dell as one of its customers.

The Hyundai Motor Company has led a seed-funding round into Israeli startup Kardome Technology. Kardome develops a multi-user speech to text algorithm that focuses in on a person’s individual voice, filtering out background noise in acoustically challenging environments.

German multinational software firm SAP has invested in Israeli startup PlainID, a maker of software that enables single authorizations. PlainID’s products protect the digital assets of users of SAP’s Customer Data Cloud platform by securing cloud, mobile, and other applications.

SodaStream’s new CEO, Eyal Shohat, is planning to launch in China in 2021. SodaStream is Israeli’s largest civil employer of Bedouin women, prisoners, Ethiopian-Israelis and Palestinian Arabs. It is currently preventing millions of bottles of plastic waste every year.

Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) is partnering with India’s Hindustan Aeronautics (HAL) and Dynamatic Technologies (DTL). IAI will share drone technologies and promote the production of Indian unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).

El Al subsidiary Sun d’Or is launching three new seasonal routes from Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport. The new routes are to Romanian city of Cluj, starting May 2020; to Paphos, Cyprus, starting in June; and to Verona, Italy from July. The routes will then operate until the end of October.

Israeli startups underpin New York City’s fintech ecosystem. Now, Jerusalem’s JVP and NYC’s Economic Development Corporation have launched the $100 million International NYC Cyber Center. (At the launch actress Gwyneth Paltrow said, “Next Year in Jerusalem”!)

BICOM’s new report Britain and Israel: The new strategic partnership shows that British trade with Israel is booming and bilateral relations are expanding in defense, science, tech, business and cybersecurity. It highlights a new strategic partnership between the two countries.