Israel’s startup ecosystem is booming, with a record amount of venture capital funding coming through the country’s gates. Companies hailing from the region have seen a steady increase in capital invested in recent years, culminating in an eye-watering €2.4 billion across 310 deals in 2018, per the PitchBook Platform.
This year got off to a similar start through 1H, as businesses have been making headlines with mammoth rounds. In May, one of Israel’s most valuable startups, Gett, raised a whopping $200 million worth of debt and equity, valuing the provider of a ridehailing app at $1.5 billion. Just a month later, LiDAR developer Innoviz Technologies closed its Series C on a total of $170 million.
The fact that so much capital is going toward Israeli businesses may not surprise. While the country is relatively small in size, it is fast becoming one of the most technologically influential hubs in the world, driven by a young, well-educated workforce and a favorable entrepreneurial environment.
What might raise a few eyebrows is the amount coming from non-Israeli VCs. Some 71% of the country’s rounds include foreign investors, compared with 44% for London-based deals and 24% for those in Silicon Valley, per data from High-Tech Connect Suisse. Israel’s proportion of foreign VC activity is in keeping with a growing global trend of cross-border investment. In fact, around 92% of venture deals last year had participation from foreign investors, according to data from PitchBook, an increase from 89.5% in 2017. The US is responsible for the majority of the deal count, with a total of 1,329 since 2014.