Israel Active

What a contrast to the BBC’s normal biased anti-Israel reporting.  BBC World’s “Talking Business” program included this feature by Jonathan Josephs. It highlights the UK-Israel Tech Hub as the ideal model to expand UK hi-tech business and create jobs post Brexit.

I reported previously on Israel’s Behalf which provides short-term loans having used hi-tech to decide on a company’s risk profile. Now financial giant Visa is partnering Behalf to “support small business growth”.  Behalf’s clients receive a tokenized Visa Virtual Card.

Low cost Hungarian airline Wizz Air is commencing twice-weekly flights from November between Eilat and both Budapest and Sofia.  Wizz already operates services from Eilat to London, Vienna, Bucharest, Riga, and Warsaw.

Israel’s Gett makes 100 million rides a year, mostly with its London and NYC taxis. This generates around $1 billion in mobility services, according to Stockholm-listed venture capital firm Vostok New Ventures Ltd in its latest financial report.

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. has upped its stake in Israeli biotech Teva by another 6.7%. Berkshire Hathaway now owns nearly $1 billion of Teva shares.

Good news for backpackers.  Latin American hostel and co-working company Selina and Israel’s Ampa Real Estate have been scouting locations in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Haifa and the southern Negev desert. Selina intends to open several hostels with a combined capacity of 5,000-7,000 beds within five years.

El Al has purchased 16 Dreamliners (Boeing 787s) in a $1.2 billion deal, which will gradually replace older Boeing 747 and 767 planes. El Al received its 6th Dreamliner in a ceremony with the PM’s wife Sara Netanyahu who dressed as an El Al flight attendant - one of her previous jobs.

Israelis Yosi Romano and Ziv Leinwand went on the BBC’s “Dragon’s Den” program, winning a £125,000 investment from star “dragon” Touker Suleyman. Their device protects babies from pollution, sucking in air, cleaning it and blowing it into the child’s breathing space in its pram.

The Asian Games (Aug 18 – Sep 2) doesn’t allow Israeli athletes to compete, but the host country Indonesia has chosen Israel’s Moovit as the games’ official mobility app. Moovit is the world’s most downloaded transit app with over 200 million users in 82 countries.

As he opened trading on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE) last week, Israel’s Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon revealed that the State of Israel would be worth NIS 17,638,763,277,054 if it floated on the TASE. This was according to the latest methodology used by the World Bank in a survey of 140 countries.