Israel Active

Apple has decided to increase the size of its second Herzliya research building to be built later this year by no less than 4,000 meters, enabling it to add 150 to 250 new Israeli employees to its current 700 staff. Apple’s Israeli development center is its largest in the world outside its California HQ.

Israel’s national airline El Al has launched its “Cockpit” program that provides help to entrepreneurs who are developing solutions for the travel industry. It already has two startups, Shopnfly and BidFlyer, who will use El Al as a “test site” for their apps and software and maybe as a strategic partner.

Another incubator has been quietly nurturing Israeli startups. Nielsen Innovate launched in July 2012 and has just funded its 10th start-up - Furious Corp, a media advertising platform. Nielsen Innovate focuses on marketing, consumer and advertising research technologies.

US defense giant Lockheed Martin has invested $25 million in Israeli cyber security firm Cybereason. It also offers Cybereason’s systems to its clients including most of the top Fortune 100 companies and the US Government. Cybereason uses behavior analysis to detect cyber attacks.

Israel’s College of Management Academic Studies (COMAS) and USA’s Baruch College-CUNY, are launching a unique dual MBA degree. The joint program leverages the spirit of Israel as a "startup nation" and of NYC as the world's financial center.

Terra Venture Partners (TVP) has launched its “Create Tel Aviv” accelerator that aims to develop the human talent that makes up the Israeli start-up ecosystem. TVP will invest up to $5m in entrepreneurs who have skills and ideas, even if they don’t have a startup or a project yet.

The Israel Syndicate is a new U.S.-based group made up of investors targeting the ever-growing community of Israeli startups that need a US presence to develop the relationships needed to build a successful company.

Claridge CDPQ Israel has just opened in Tel Aviv, nine years after Claridge sold its last Israeli investment. The CDPQ is Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, which manages $225 billion in pension funds, and is an equal partner in the operation. Claridge CEO Pierre Boivin said “To say we are bullish is an understatement.”

Israel’s Infinidat has raised $150 million, valuing the company at $1.2 billion. Infinidat has filed more than 100 software patents, and its product, InfiniBox, lets customers store as much as 2 petabytes (2 million gigabytes) of data on a standard 19-inch, 42-unit storage rack.

Best known as the ancient city holy to billions of people around the world, Jerusalem has become a flourishing center for biomed, cleantech, Internet/mobile startups, accelerators, investors and supporting service providers. And please listen to Roy Munin, CEO of MadeinJLM, who explains why Entrepreneur and Time magazines named Israel’s holy capital city as top global startup ecosystem.