Israel Active

A survey by Israeli-founded Payoneer reveals that the $42 average hourly wage of Israeli freelance workers is nearly double that of their counterparts in other countries. 7,000 freelance workers in 150 countries were surveyed.

Conferences do not have to be big to be successful. Axis Tel Aviv is limited to 250 decision makers and international investors - many visiting Israel for the first time. Israeli startups pitching to investors include in the fields of mobility, media and telecommunications, fintech, insurtech, and commerce.

WeTech Berlin 2020 (Feb 26 – 27) is an exclusive innovation conference hosted by CTech and Calcalist. Fifty Israeli startups will showcase technologies and meet with local investors and strategic partners in European and German corporations. (All 50 startups are listed in the following link)

Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and his British counterpart Boris Johnson have agreed to begin talks on establishing a free trade zone between Israel and the UK. Israel was the first country in the world to sign a post-Brexit trade deal with the UK .

Israel has raised a record $3 billion in foreign debt at the lowest-ever rate for an Israeli offering. Demand reached an all-time high, from over 40 countries including the US, UK, Germany, Japan and Hong Kong. It reflected confidence among the world's largest investors in Israel's economy.

Tel Aviv-headquartered startup network SOSA has partnered with London innovation center Plexal. SOSA combines an investor network with a corporate innovation hub operating from centers in Tel Aviv and New York City.  It already has 250 partners in 10 countries.

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.