Israel Active

Virgin Atlantic’s maiden flight from London Heathrow landed at Tel Aviv on 25th Sep. It will provide competition on the popular London to Tel Aviv route with El Al and British Airways as well as with low cost airlines easyJet and Wizz which fly from London Luton.

As reported previously Israel’s FundBox lends money to small businesses who are struggling with their cash flow. The idea has caught on so much that FundBox has raised $326 million to enable its goal of releasing much of the $3.1 trillion locked up in accounts receivables.

After successful trials , UK supermarket giant Tesco has decided to integrate the cashless checkout system from Israel’s Trigo. Tesco has invested funds in the Israeli startup, and will integrate Trigo’s technology into its app.

As reported previously, Israel’s Eximo has developed a laser-catheter for treatment of peripheral artery disease (PAD). Eximo has just been acquired by US medical device company AngioDynamics for a minimum of $40 million. Development will continue in Israel.

Fascinating bio of Israeli cancer expert and entrepreneur Dr Aya Jakobovits. She founded Adicet Bio in 2014 and is still a Director. Co-founded Kite in 2010, selling it for $12 billion . Exec VP of Agensys ($0.5 billion exit in 2007). Principle scientist at Abgenix (exited for $2.2 billion in 2005).

As reported previously Israel’s Moovit has integrated its public transit app into Uber’s ride-sharing app. The partnership has now been extended into 15 additional cities globally, including Paris and San Francisco. Moovit operates in 3,000 cities and has over 500 million users.

Israeli content distributors Taboola and Outbrain make billions of dollars by attracting Internet users to the websites of large on-line companies. Now they realize that they can be even more successful by working together – so they are merging. From startups to grown-ups.

Israeli NGO ICON organized its sixth annual Innovation Week in Silicon Valley, California. It was attended by some 450 delegates from around the globe. Non-profit ICON bridges the Israeli and San Francisco tech startup communities.

The 18 Israeli bio-techs presenting at an event in Beverly Hills, California all benefited from the Merage Institute Leadership Programs for Israeli Life Science executives and the Elite Entrepreneur Organization - a global network of entrepreneurs.

Amazon has officially launched its Israeli website. Available only in English, it offers prices in shekels and a “ships locally” option. The Israeli retailers that already joined include cosmetics brand GA-DE, fashion retailers Crazy Line and Adika, Nintendo Israel, and skincare brand Sebocalm.