Israel Active

Tubi 60 is an Israeli-made alcoholic drink with a secret mix of some 60 natural herbs and fruit essences. Developed and distilled by Hilal and Yanai Tubi, the vegan herbal spirit is available at most Jerusalem bars and clubs. It will soon also be found on liquor shelves in Texas, Brooklyn, Oslo and Berlin.

I reported previously that Israeli oil company Delek had taken a 19.7% stake in Canadian-UK oil exploration company Ithaca which is active in the UK’s North Sea waters.  Delek has now taken-over control of Ithaca for around 470 million Canadian dollars.

In the Israeli tech industry, workers are in greater demand than supply as the 112 recruiting companies confirmed at the employment fair held at the private university IDC Herzliya. Also, many youngsters want the challenge of starting their own company rather than joining an existing one.  

EasyJet are launching regular flights from Tel Aviv to Venice and to Naples. There are three flights a week to Venice, starting 31 Oct and two flights a week to Naples, starting 4 Nov. These routes bring to eleven the number of easyJet’s scheduled services to Europe from Tel Aviv.

The readers of Travel + Leisure magazine voted Israel's Ben-Gurion Airport as the 8th best airport in the world. Rankings were based on travelers' experiences of access, check-in, security, food, shopping and design.

Israel’s Mazor Robotics has received sixteen purchase orders for its Mazor X system from customers in the U.S. It expects to report record revenues for the second quarter of 2017.

Israel’s first 100% vegan supermarket HaGal HaYarok has opened in Tel Aviv’s Shuk HaCarmel. Besides well-known vegan brands, it stocks baked goods of all kinds, plus hard-to-find and exotic ingredients. It also sells its own HaGal HaYarok private label products.

International cybersecurity giant Symantec is acquiring Israeli cybersecurity company Fireglass for an estimated $250 million.  Fireglass was founded only in 2014 and its 40 employees have a cyber solution that eliminates ransomware, malware and phishing threats in real-time.

In 2016 Intel Israel procured NIS 5.76 billion of goods and services, 75% of it from small and medium-sized suppliers. Intel currently has 10,200 employees in Israel. It recycled 270,000 cubic meters of water in 2016 and reduced its production of greenhouse gases by 16,000 tons.

Of the 25 leading startups selected by "The Wall Street Journal," in its article "Tech companies to watch," six - almost one quarter - are Israeli. Furthermore, three of the four cybersecurity companies on the list are Israeli.