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.
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.
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.
It’s no secret that the London startup ecosystem is booming. It’s incredible to see it from the vantage point of Campus – new startups are created every day, and the slightly more mature international startups from the US and the…
Forbes released the 2013 Midas List for Venture Capital today, proving that to be successful in VC, all you need is one big hit. Five of the top ten names on the list invested in Facebook, the largest tech IPO of 2012.
Brands spend a fortune on marketing- more than 9% (b2c) and 7% (b2b) of total revenue. Within marketing budgets, the fastest growing portion (+40%) is social media. Unfortunately, a growing body of evidence suggests that garnering LIKES on a Facebook page does nothing to foster community or increase engagement. Your digital agency has been lying to you. The better approach for lowering customer service costs and increasing engagement is to transform your organization into a social business.
The Smartphone Era has been good to games. This category captures more than 80% of mobiledownload revenue (AppAnnie) but earns even more from from in-app purchases and advertising. This post covers the main drivers for gaming ROI and adoption.
Groucho Marx could have been talking about the Israeli hi-tech sector when he said “I made a killing on Wall Street a few years ago…I shot my broker”. In 2012, as Israeli exits topped $5.5 billion, there was reason to celebrate but plenty of cause for concern.
Traditional media companies had an amazing year on Wall Street. While the Dow Jones Index increased a respectable 6.7%, the US Broadcasting and Entertainment Index surged 40%. In fact, other than Sony (dragged down by its hardware business), 6 of the top 7 media conglomerates substantially outperformed the NASDAQ 500.
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