Israel Active

I’ve reported previously on Israel’s Anagog and its software that analyzes sensor signals in smartphones. Now car maker Porsche has bought a minority stake in Anagog in a bid to expand its offering of digital technologies. Analog’s technology is used in about 100 global smartphone apps.

Non-profit organization SouthUp has set up a shared workspace for startup employees at Kibbutz Nir Am, barely a kilometer from Gaza. SouthUp also has an accelerator program for startups in agri-tech, water tech, kibbutz industrial development, energy, chemistry, biology, and software.

I reported previously about Israel’s SECDO and its systems that can distinguish a real cybersecurity breach from a false alarm. US giant Palo Alto Networks has just bought SECDO for $100 million.

I’ve reported previously about Israel’s Orbotech, whose systems produce almost every electronic device in the world.  Orbotech has just been taken over by US giant KLA-Tencor for a massive $3.4 billion. Orbotech will continue to operate under the Orbotech brand in Yavne, Israel.

India’s national airline, Air India, has completed its first flight between New Delhi and Tel Aviv flying through Saudi Arabian airspace. Recent Saudi government permission for the service has cut flight time to just five hours instead of the seven hours required to circumvent the Arab state.

The price of food in Israel has dropped 5% in the past two years, the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) reports. Reasons include a 1% cut in VAT, 3.5% cut in corporate taxes and higher caps for food imports, especially fresh beef. Salaries rose 3% in this period.

Kibbutz Ketura-based (UK-owned) Algatech has acquired New Zealand’s Supreme Health which, like Algatech, produces the algae anti-oxidant product astaxanthin. Algatech can now use Supreme’s client base to target Asia and especially the Chinese market.

Regular readers will have read previous articles about the revolutionary new wheel developed by Israel’s SoftWheel. Now Canadian auto parts maker Linamar is investing “millions of dollars” in a production line that will manufacture hundreds of thousands of these wheels.

The Israeli Council for Higher Education granted the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya permission to apply to confer doctorate degrees, beginning with law.  It is a major step towards the IDC becoming Israel’s first private university.

Two Israelis - Yael Kochman and Alla Foht, have partnered with eBay to launch “Re: Tech”, a Retail Tech Hub in the heart of Tel Aviv. It has attracted 170 Israeli startups and over 2,000 entrepreneurs and investors who use offices for up to 16 people and an open space with 20 workstations.