Israel Active

Israeli-born billionaire Haim Saban has set up a new fund (Saban Ventures) to invest $100 million in Israeli startups. The fund will invest in startups in the mobile, social networks, ecommerce and digital media sectors.

Cisco Systems has acquired two-year-old Israeli Leaba Semiconductor for $350-$400 million. Leaba is so new that it is still operating in “stealth” mode. Its website says that "Leaba is a fabless semiconductor company providing innovative solutions for significant infrastructure challenges.”

In Jan 2016, Israeli startups raised an astonishing $556.4 million. They included ForeScout Technologies ($76m), JFrog ($50m), Zerto ($50m), SiSense ($50m), BlueVine ($40m), Elastifile ($35m), V-Wave ($28m) and Insightec ($22m).

Japanese car giant Nissan and Israel’s Mobileye have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to integrate Mobileye's new Road Experience Management digital maps technology into Nissan’s fleets. The Nissan deal, follows similar ones with General Motors and Volkswagen.

Honduras is currently in the implementation stage of installing 3 radar systems developed by Israel Aerospace Industries. The systems, worth $30 million, will help Honduras combat South American smugglers.

Jeremy Lustman set up the Israel branch of DLA Piper law firm in 2009. Like a Jewish matchmaker, he introduces clients and builds relationships. In just the first half of 2015, he helped facilitate seven M&A (merger and acquisition) transactions that collectively exceeded $1.5 billion. =

Israeli ride-hailing startup Juno is building a driver-friendly business to compete against its rival Uber. Firstly, it will take only a 10% cut of each fare (Uber takes 20-25%). Secondly, Juno’s drivers will be shareholders in the startup. Juno is to launch in New York City in the spring.

Israeli cloud software start-up Revello Systems has been purchased by Oracle - the world’s second largest software developer - for an estimated $500 million. Ravello’s software enables the transfer of data between different cloud platforms and servers.

Ryanair has launched a new route from Bratislava, Slovakia, to Eilat Ovda, Israel. The route is part of Ryanair 2016 winter plan, with two flights per week scheduled. This new route adds to the 3 routes already operating by the airline to Ovda, from Budapest, Hungary, Kaunas, Lithuania, and Krakow, Poland.

MadeinJLM has produced a new interactive map with more than 500 Jerusalem startups.