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Israeli Tech Remains Resilient Despite War, Says New Report
Stock ticker. Photo: Ahmad Ardity/Wikimedia Commons.
Israel’s Startup Nation Central, an Israel-based NGO, released its annual Israeli Tech Ecosystem report for 2023 this week, highlighting the growth in the country’s tech sector and with outlooks for 2024.
According to the report, the country has 7272 tech companies that have received funding from a total of 353 investors. Total funding, spread across categories, topped $23.5 billion, with $7.9 billion alone coming in private rounds. The amounts are a drop from previous years, with $17.7 billion in private money coming in 2022 and a remarkable $29.4 billion in 2021. This falls in line with global tech funding that saw a spike during the Covid-19 pandemic, and which subsequently dropped in 2022 and 2023. For example, the US saw a 51% drop in funding from 2021-2023, Europe 52%, and Asia 60%.
Despite the war currently raging, funding for the fourth quarter of 2023 is estimated at $2.1 billion – the lowest of the fiscal year but an indictor at that there is still interest in the sector. Most of this money, as has been the norm for most of Israel’s tech history, comes from foreign investors. The breakdown for 2023 was 43.8% foreign only, 39.5% foreign and Israeli, and 16.7% only Israeli investment. This is very much in line with the previous six years.
Israel’s tech sector is notable for achievements and innovations in cybersecurity – in many thanks to its necessity due to constant security threats. As such, the sector saw the largest intake in funding for the year with $1.9 billion. The sector with the most absolute investments – 150 – was the health tech field. The country has a high rate of research output and favorable private/public partnerships between the major hospital systems, allowing for new technology to be tested and scaled more easily than other countries.
Benjamin Weiss, a partner at Softbank, told the report that he is bullish on the future of the industry, saying “Israel continues to stand at the forefront of the development of next generation technologies in areas including Cyber, Artificial Intelligence and Semiconductors.”
Due to the war, Yonatan Mandelbaum, a partner at TLV Partners, said “I believe we will begin to see a new cohort of even more ambitious companies coming out of Israel in industries that have been historically overlooked such as: defense, manufacturing and critical infrastructure.”
2023 also saw 52 Israeli companies being bought out, totaling $3.5 billion. Twelve of these sales happened during the war, even higher than the second sector of 2023. Notable sales were Imperva, a cybersecurity company, being bought by French company Thales for $3.6 billion Talon Cyber Security being bought by Israeli founded Palo Alto Networks for $625 million, Axis Security being bought by Hewlett Packard for $500 million, and Dig Security also being purchased by Palo Alto for $350 million.
As the war rages in the south and the potential for an expansion to the north with Lebanon, optimism still reigns supreme in the sector. According to Startup Nation Central, 89% of respondents said they were optimistic about the future of the sector in Israel, and 79% said they see the industry as resilient. They also surveyed multinational companies, 88% of which said they would either maintain or expand their operations in Israel.
Lotan Levkowitz, the general partner at Grove Ventures, said “In 2024 entrepreneurship is more than a job – it’s about resilient founders facing challenges head-on. Despite a tough funding scene, only the strongest will prevail, shaping a tech landscape defined by grit and excellence.”
The CEO of Startup Nation Central, Avi Hasson, added “Heading into 2024, the Israeli tech ecosystem faces significant challenges, but I am hopeful that the ecosystem’s bedrock of innovation, global partnership, and proven resilience will steer it through uncertainties and toward a continued growth trajectory; Israel remains an innovation hub and an ecosystem with significant investment opportunities.”
The post Israeli Tech Remains Resilient Despite War, Says New Report first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Germany: 5 Killed, Scores Wounded after Saudi Man Plows Car Into Christmas crowd
Magdeburg Christmas market, December 21, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Christian Mang
i24 News – A suspected terrorist plowed a vehicle into a crowd at a Christmas market in the German city of Magdeburg, west of the capital Berlin, killing at least five and injuring dozens more.
Local police confirmed that the suspect was a Saudi national born in 1974 and acting alone.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz expressed his concern about the incident, saying that “reports from Magdeburg suggest something bad. My thoughts are with the victims and their families.”
Police declined to give casualty numbers, confirming only a large-scale operation at the market, where people had gathered to celebrate in the days leading up to the Christmas holidays.
The post Germany: 5 Killed, Scores Wounded after Saudi Man Plows Car Into Christmas crowd first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Syria’s New Rulers Name HTS Commander as Defense Minister
A person waves a flag adopted by the new Syrian rulers, as people gather during a celebration called by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) near the Umayyad Mosque, after the ousting of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria, Photo: December 20, 2024. REUTERS/Ammar Awad/File Photo
Syria’s new rulers have appointed Murhaf Abu Qasra, a leading figure in the insurgency which toppled Bashar al-Assad, as defense minister in the interim government, an official source said on Saturday.
Abu Qasra, who is also known by the nom de guerre Abu Hassan 600, is a senior figure in the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group which led the campaign that ousted Assad this month. He led numerous military operations during Syria’s revolution, the source said.
Syria’s de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa discussed “the form of the military institution in the new Syria” during a meeting with armed factions on Saturday, state news agency SANA reported.
Abu Qasra during the meeting sat next to Sharaa, also known by the nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Golani, photos published by SANA showed.
Prime Minister Mohammed al-Bashir said this week that the defense ministry would be restructured using former rebel factions and officers who defected from Assad’s army.
Bashir, who formerly led an HTS-affiliated administration in the northwestern province of Idlib, has said he will lead a three-month transitional government. The new administration has not declared plans for what will happen after that.
Earlier on Saturday, the ruling General Command named Asaad Hassan al-Shibani as foreign minister, SANA said. A source in the new administration told Reuters that this step “comes in response to the aspirations of the Syrian people to establish international relations that bring peace and stability.”
Shibani, a 37-year-old graduate of Damascus University, previously led the political department of the rebels’ Idlib government, the General Command said.
Sharaa’s group was part of al Qaeda until he broke ties in 2016. It had been confined to Idlib for years until going on the offensive in late November, sweeping through the cities of western Syria and into Damascus as the army melted away.
Sharaa has met with a number of international envoys this week. He has said his primary focus is on reconstruction and achieving economic development and that he is not interested in engaging in any new conflicts.
Syrian rebels seized control of Damascus on Dec. 8, forcing Assad to flee after more than 13 years of civil war and ending his family’s decades-long rule.
Washington designated Sharaa a terrorist in 2013, saying al Qaeda in Iraq had tasked him with overthrowing Assad’s rule and establishing Islamic sharia law in Syria. US officials said on Friday that Washington would remove a $10 million bounty on his head.
The war has killed hundreds of thousands of people, caused one of the biggest refugee crises of modern times and left cities bombed to rubble and the economy hollowed out by global sanctions.
The post Syria’s New Rulers Name HTS Commander as Defense Minister first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Sweden Ends Funding for UNRWA, Pledges to Seek Other Aid Channels
View of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) building in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. Photo: Abed Rahim Khatib / Flash90.
i24 News – Sweden will no longer fund the U.N. refugee agency for Palestinians (UNRWA) and will instead provide humanitarian assistance to Gaza via other channels, the Scandinavian country said on Friday.
The decision comes on the heels of multiple revelations regarding the agency’s employees’ involvement in the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led massacre in southern Israel that triggered the war in Gaza.
Sweden’s decision was in response to the Israeli ban, as it will make channeling aid via the agency more difficult, the country’s aid minister, Benjamin Dousa, said.
“Large parts of UNRWA’s operations in Gaza are either going to be severely weakened or completely impossible,” Dousa said. “For the government, the most important thing is that support gets through.”
The Palestinian embassy in Stockholm said in a statement: “We reject the idea of finding alternatives to UNRWA, which has a special mandate to provide services to Palestinian refugees.”
Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel thanked Dousa for a meeting they had this week and for Sweden’s decision to drop its support for UNRWA.
“There are worthy and viable alternatives for humanitarian aid, and I appreciate the willingness to listen and adopt a different approach,” she said.
The post Sweden Ends Funding for UNRWA, Pledges to Seek Other Aid Channels first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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