Israel Active

I reported previously on the desire by Egypt to buy natural gas from Israel. Now finally, Egypt's Dolphinus Holdings has signed agreements to purchase 64 billion cubic meters of gas from Israel’s Tamar and Leviathan fields. The 10-year deal is worth $15 billion.

Intel, the global chip-making giant, is planning a $5 billion expansion of its Kiryat Gat cutting-edge manufacturing facility in Southern Israel. It follows the company's $6 billion investment in 2016 to upgrade the facility to produce advanced 10 nanometer chips.

Artificial vision device company OrCam has just raised $30.4 million of funds that values the company at $1 billion – giving it the financial status known as a “Unicorn”. OrCam’s founders Aviram and Amnon Shashua also co-founded Mobileye and sold it later to Intel for $15.3 billion.

The Merck Group and Shanghai’s WuXi AppTec have launched the biotech startup incubator ExploreBio. It is Merck’s 3rd Israeli biotech incubator, based at Merck’s existing complex in Yavne and will focus on early stage biotechnology startups. The program has a five-year budget of $25 million.

I reported previously that Visa Europe had opened a start-up center in Tel Aviv. It is now launching an innovation studio in Tel Aviv for Israeli FinTech startups to develop the next generation of payment solutions.

Ben Gurion airport’s new wing E includes telescopic glass pathways, eight plane exit gates, four bus exit gates, along with shops, restaurants and a VIP lounge. It can handle up to 1,800 more passengers per hour, allowing for dozens of extra daily flights.

Philips Healthcare is increasing the number of employees in its cancer informatics division in Israel. The total number of Philips Healthcare’s employees in Israel will rise to 1000.

Start-Jerusalem gives promising young startups from around the world the tools and guidance to improve their companies.

About 400 Israeli startups or tech companies now operate in the UK, primarily in Greater London. More than a dozen Israeli firms are listed on the London Stock Exchange. Israelis choose London for its proximity plus specializing sectors of forex, creative content services, ecommerce and fintech.

On 1st Feb, OurCrowd, a leading global equity crowdfunding platform, held its largest annual investor conference in Jerusalem. 10,000 attendees from over 90 countries; 1,000 startups, 500 multinationals and 500 venture capitalists. See Jon Medved’s video preview.