Israel Active

The governor of the Bank of Israel Amir Yaron has won the $100,000 biennial Stephen A. Ross Prize from the US Foundation for the Advancement of Research in Financial Economics. Mr Yaron co-authored an influential research paper on long-term asset pricing.

Israel’s Minister of Finance, Moshe Kahlon, and Bank of Israel Governor Prof. Amir Yaron, led the Israeli delegation to the annual World Bank and International Monetary Fund conference. There was much interest in Israeli cyber technology to protect international financial systems.

Israeli startups raised at least $1 billion of funds in Sep 2019 and are on track to beat last year’s record-breaking figure of $6.4 billion. The actual figure is even higher as some companies do not reveal investment data.

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.