Israel Active

Israel’s Migal Galilee Research Institute is now MigVax Corp and has just received $12 million of funds, led by Ourcrowd. MigVax is developing a safe, oral vaccine with 3 levels of protection. It will be easy to scale up and can be adjusted for other coronavirus strains.

Good news for Israeli nationals. British Airways and Wizz are shortly resuming their London to Tel Aviv flights. Air Canada is restarting from Toronto and Montreal and Delta is resuming from New York. United Airlines is upgrading its New York service and restarting from San Francisco.

Multinational retailer IKEA has re-opened its stores in Netanya, Tel Aviv Port and Rishon LeZion as part of Israel’s slow return to normality. IKEA will observe the latest Ministry of Health regulations, including social distancing, wearing of masks, maintaining hygiene and frequent cleaning.

Israeli school admin staff are returning to work in advance of schools reopening. They will be subject to Health Ministry guidelines. It is a major step towards allowing parents to return to work. Special education classes have already reopened.

Israel’s BATM is already busy producing COVID-19 testing kits (reported previously). Now, it has received a $31 million order from an unnamed European country, for 1000 ventilators to be delivered between June and September.

El Al's cargo department has signed a deal to operate 150 cargo flights from China to Italy, carrying medical equipment to help battle coronavirus. El Al will operate two flights daily between April and October using converted 777 planes and Dreamliners.

Israeli global investment platform Ourcrowd held a webinar on how Israel’s Government, healthcare and technology startups are combating the coronavirus. It featured PulmOne, SightDX and MigVax. Some 1000 medical, media and investment professionals attended. And me. See the slides here.

The Israeli Innovation Authority (IIA), the government's tech investment arm, is making available NIS 500 million for Israeli startups that have a good chance of succeeding in the long run, but are currently suffering from a shortage in funding and need immediate investment.

This week Israeli startups InnovoPro raised , Granulate raised , Orchestra raised , MyndYou raised , Arti raised , and Gauzy raised some .

The previous newsletter stated that Israel’s treasury sold $5 billion in long-term bonds to help alleviate the economic effects of the coronavirus pandemic. In fact, the issue was so oversubscribed, that a record $25 billion was raised, highlighting international confidence in Israel’s economy.