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.
2014 will be a BIG year for Digital Marketing. AdAge’s annual survey of top B2B marketers found that 80% have boosted their digital marketing budgets, the highest proportion ever. A new wave of Israeli marketing technology startups are helping CMOs get more bang for their digital buck.
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.
Guest post by Daniel Abrahams, founder of CurrencyTransfer. I’ve always been intrigued by the success of the ‘Startup Nation.’ In this post, I want to share my story. That of a British startup which naively arrived for three months in Tel Aviv and hasn’t looked back since.
I was asked to contribute to a crowdsourced book about the future, looking to predict the world in 2020. While it doesn't seem that far away, I took the liberty of virtually 'closing my eyes' to imagine how Media, Context and Education would change in 6 years time.
One can clearly see a close and compelling partnership between Britain and Israel, specifically in business and trade, where both countries recognising their partner’s strengths, seek to use it to encourage and enhance their own potential.
You're probably familiar with the 60's bestseller by Dale Carnegie, or at least you've heard of it. He's main point is "Interested is interesting!". The best way to get people to want to connect with you is to show interest in them. We're all selfish creatures, or so it seems.
Harvard Professor Yochai Benkler has a radical premise: cooperation triumphs over self-interest. In a lecture this month in Tel Aviv, he called for cooperation and community as a tool to fundamentally transform business.
Corporate accelerators are a recent phenomenon, both in Israel and globally. Microsoft selected Israel last year to launch its very first accelerator program. The company takes no equity, with the emphasis on business and technical mentoring.
Francois Hollande, President of France, led a delegation this week of 260 senior French executives and government officials to Israel for the 2nd annual France-Israel Innovation Day. The objective was to connect French companies with innovative Israeli startups.
The recent regulatory changes of Obamacare create opportunities and challenges for mHealth and eHealth startups that are worth considering. This post covers the massive changes that are about to take place in the industry and 66 Israeli startups operating in the mhealth space.
Folks in Silicon Valley seem to have been indoctrinated in the "Think big" mentality fully - and it's contagious. I've spent the past couple of weeks working with my American colleagues in New York and San Francisco and meeting our global partners. If there's one thing I could say is a stark difference between European entrepreneurs and Silicon Valley ones, is this 10X, or "moonshot" thinking.
Weekly Firgun Newsletter
Join founders and investors reading the weekly Firgun newsletter by Eze Vidra.