Good all-round improvement
Israel’s Composite State of the Economy index for October increased by 0.3% - a slight acceleration in the last two months. All components improved, especially consumer goods exports, services exports, industrial production, imports, retail trade revenue, services revenue and job vacancies.
Top of the world
In the World Economic Forum’s 2019-2020 Global Competitiveness Report, Israel was ranked first for entrepreneurship, (risk, embrace of disruptive ideas, growing innovative companies), R&D expenditure, macroeconomic stability and multi-stakeholder collaboration. Overall Israel was 20th of 141.
Third quarter growth exceeds forecasts
Israel’s GDP grew at 4.1% in the third quarter of 2019, far in excess of the market's 2.6-2.8% expectations, according to an initial estimate published by the Central Bureau of Statistics. The unexpected result indicates that economic growth is stronger than most analysts believed.
Helping banks prevent fraud
As reported previously, Israel’s BioCatch is used to prevent fraud by top UK bank Nat West and seven tier-one banks in Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Mexico. This WSJ article reveals that the Royal Bank of Scotland also uses BioCatch’s behavior analysis to stop fraud.
One of Israel’s biggest cheerleaders
Excellent bio and interview of Jon Medved – Founder and CEO of Israeli crowdfunding platform OurCrowd. He reveals that Israel is almost neck and neck with China in terms of an absolute number of AI (Artificial Intelligent) startups.
Frog becomes a Prince
Israel’s Netanya-based software startup JFrog has been reported several times, but not when it raised $165 million last year. That transaction valued the company at $1 billion to award it the financial term “Unicorn”.
ECI Telecom exits for around $455 million
US-based Ribbon Communications is to acquire Israel-based telecommunications equipment supplier ECI Telecom for $324 million in cash plus shares worth another $130 million. ECI was founded in 1961.
A million new potential crowdfunding customers
Israeli venture capital crowdfunding platform OurCrowd is partnering with US investment bank Stifel Financial Corp. OurCrowd will offer crowdfunding opportunities to Stifel’s one million clients. Stifel will provide investment services to OurCrowd portfolio companies.
More orders for electric planes
Israel-based electric-plane startup Eviation Aircraft (reported recently) has signed up two more US customers for its pioneering commuter aircraft, taking the orders for “Alice” to more than 150 planes. Eviation’s CEO spoke at Israel’s “Business is an Adventure” conference.
Business is an Adventure
Virgin Atlantic and Calcalist organized the recent “Business Is an Adventure” conference in Tel Aviv. Eco-friendly ECOncrete won the “Pitch to Rich” event to Richard Branson and a trip to London plus the opportunity to join Virgin’s startup accelerator.