The BUBBLE came to Israel too, with a record $4.2 billion in exits, averaging $83 million. While there were IPOs (notably Wix in November), most of the acquisitions were made by global technology companies with R&D Centers (and their corporate M&A teams) in Israel, including Apple, Google, EMC, AOL, Cisco, IBM and now Facebook.
This week marked the annual b2b marketing frenzy known as the Consumer Electronics Show (URL) in Las Vegas. 155,000 visitors, a record, trundled across an Exhibition Area the size of 37 football fields. Las Vegas has become the new Cannes and the stakes are indeed high. Surrounded by roulette wheels and craps tables, Madison Avenue has chosen to double down on the Silicon Valley model.
Next month, one of the leading European operators is expected to announce a dedicated, Israel-focused venture capital fund. While there is no one-size-fits-all approach to innovation clusters, some telcos are getting a better ROI from Israel than others.
At Cannes Lions, no one will discuss the most significant disruption to hit the advertising industry since the internet- the transition to programmatic, real time bidding (RTB), except for maybe a few data geeks. Carl Fremont, Chief Digital Officer at MEC (WPP Group’s media buying subsidiary) is one of those Geeks and shared his perspective about RTB, “easily, the most important trend in the digital advertising sector for the next five years”.
As every month, VC Cafe is re-posting the “Invest in Israel” Newsletter, published by the investment promotion center of Israel’s Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labor, which offers many helpful tools for prospecting investors. See the June 2011 edition after the jump. For previous editions, click here.
How many times have you sat down with your overpriced Starbucks soy latte and the internet couldn’t connect? Apparently too many times, because Starbucks decided to do something about it. In an official press release, Starbucks got rid of T-Mobile…
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