Israel Active

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.

Israel’s Tipalti (Hebrew for “I handled it”) has offices in Israel, California and now Vancouver, Canada. Tipalti’s cloud-based payables automation service processes over $8 billion in transactions annually . Its clients include Amazon, Vimeo, Foursquare, and Twitter.

DFL Deutsche Fußball Liga GmbH, responsible for the German national soccer league (Bundesliga), has bought shares in Israel’s MOVEZ AI. MOVEZ’s soon to launch app uses computer vision and AI to evaluate a player’s skills in ball sports, including basketball and soccer.

Israeli-founded, London-based Minute Media (previously named 90min) has just acquired FanSided Ltd., a network of fandom-focused sports, entertainment, and lifestyle sites. It is Minute Media’s fourth takeover in two years. A third of Minute Media’s 230 employees work at its Tel Aviv R&D center.

Jon Medved of Israel’s OurCrowd was one of the first Israeli Venture Capitalists to speak openly in an investor conference in the Gulf ,.  Here is a video interview of him at the event. Plus, details of OurCrowd’s Global Investor Summit in Jerusalem on 13th Feb 2020.

Microsoft Corp. has announced plans to set up a data center in Israel - the first such data center to be established here by one of the five big tech giants. The Microsoft data center will provide cloud services for Israeli customers. Oracle also said it would be setting up a data center in Israel.

Israeli NGO ICON (Israel Collaboration Network – ) has setup Silicon Valley 101 (SV101) an immersion program for Israeli entrepreneurs examining potential expansion to Silicon Valley. SV101’s latest group of 10 new startups is now being selected.

A new accelerator has been launched to promote Israeli autotech startups in China. It will include 10 participants, focused on autonomous vehicles, driver experience, and 3-D printing. The accelerator aims to shorten the companies’ time to market in the country.