Israel’s Technology Protects British Troops in Afghanistan

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1. “British Prime Minister David Cameron: ‘Israel’s technology is protecting British and NATO troops in Afghanistan….’  UK-Israeli trade is at an all-time high, despite recent rumblings by the EU over the labelling of products from the West Bank and calls in some quarters for a boycott of Israeli goods….HSBC, Barclays, Rolls-Royce, GlaxoSmithKline and Unilever have a major presence in Israel. One out of every seven prescriptions filled by Britain’s National Health Service is from an Israeli pharmaceutical firm…. There are raft of government initiatives to propagate growth spearheaded by a recent trip to Israel, by Prime Minister David Cameron, as well as favorable tax treaties…. Britain’s trade with Israel reached a record high of £5.1billion last year after doubling during the last decade. The UK is Israel’s second largest trading partner after the US…. More firms listed in London’s stock exchange last year from Israel than from anywhere in the world, other than the UK itself…. Technology from Israel is used by a host of British firms, from cyber security used to protect High Street cash machines to chips that go in TV set-top boxes.”
2. $835mn raised by Israeli companies, on the British Stock Exchange, during the first seven months of 2015 (Globes Business Daily, July 13, 2015).
3. Steve Forbes, July 22, 2015: “Israel is now one of the top two or three high-tech powers in the world–ahead of the European Union, with its 500 million people.…“
4. The following Israeli companies were acquired during the first 7 months of 2015: Lumenis acquired by XIO Private Equity for $510mn, Cliquesoftware by San Francisco Partners – $438mn, Annapurna Labs by Amazon – $360mn, Adallom by Microsoft – $320mn, Red Bend by Harman – $200mn, Panaya by InfoSys – $200mn, Exelate by Nielsen – $200mn, CloudOn by Dropbox – $100mn, WatchDox by Blackberry – $100mn, Spectronics by Emerson Electric – $100mn, Stockton Agrochemicals by China’s Sichuan Hebang Corp – $90mn,Equivio by Microsoft – $75mn, Discretix by ARM – $75mn, OrAd hightech by Avid Technologie – $70mn, Intellinx by BottomLine – $67mn, CyActive by PayPal – $60mn, Matan Printing by EFI – $50mn, Deeprz by Como – $50mn, ARX by DocuSign – $40mn, Kima Labs by GroupOn – $35mn, AppsFire by Mobile network Group – $30mn, Appoxee by TeraData – $25mn, LinX by Apple – $$20mn, IdmLogic by Computers Associates (CA) – $20mn, Porticor Cloud Security by Intuit, Ntrig by Microsoft, Quantum Materials Company by Merck, and ConteXtream by HP – each for a few scores of million dollars (Globes, July 21).
5. Israel’s NeuroDerm and Chiasma raised $170mn on NASDAQ (Globes, July 17). $84mn invested by Insight Venture Partners in Israel’s cyber company, CheckMarx (Globes, June 26).
6. $5.3bn during the first six months of 2015 is the total acquisitions of Israeli companies, Israeli IPOs and joint ventures – 76% of the total during the entire 2014, $6/9bn and 80% of 2013, $6.6bn (Globes, July 8).

7. The London Economist, July 18, 2015: “Israel is pivoting to Asia…. India is buying $7bn of Israeli military systems…. Dozens of Chinese businessmen and officials from all levels of government visit Israel each month.  In 2014, Chinese companies invested nearly $4bn in Israel…. The Director of Shengjing, Beeijing-based consulting firm, which facilitates Chinese investments in Israeli technologies, visited Israel 15 times in the past two years….”