1. Facebook made its 5th Israeli acquisition, buying Israel’s Redkix for $100MN. Previous Facebook acquisitions in Israel: Snaptu – $70MN, Face.com – $100MN, Onavo – $150MN and Pebbles – $60MN (Globes Business Daily, July 30, 2018).
2. The San Francisco-based global CRM (Customer Relationship Management) giant, Salesforce, signed a definite agreement to acquire Israel’s Datorama for $850MN (Globes, July 18). The NYC-based Warburg-Pincus, a global leading private equity firm, acquired Israel’s Leumi Cards for $684MN (Bloomberg, July 29). The Santa Clara-based cybersecurity Palo Alto acquired Israel’s Secdo for $100MN (Globes, July 12). The UK-based Mimecast acquired Israel’s Solebit Cybersecurity for $88MN (Globes, July 31).
3. The total exits (58) for the first half of 2018 was $6.22BN, among them: the Milpitas, CA-based KLA Tencor acquired Israel’s Orbotech for $3.4BN; the global Permira Investment acquired the Jerusalem-based NDS for $1BN; Philips, the Dutch multinational technology company, acquired Israel’s EPD Medical for $292MN; the Silver Spring, MD-based United Therapeutics acquired Israel’s SteadyMed for $216MN (Globes, July 12).
4. Israeli start-ups raised over $650MN in July, 2018 and over $3.7BN during January-July, 2018. 2017 was a record year of $5.24BN (Globes, July 31).
5. Intel‘s three Israeli research and development centers, and one production plant employ 11,000 persons, in addition to the 1,000 employees of Mobileye, which was recently acquired by Intel for $15.3BN. In 2017, Intel’s export from Israel was $3.6BN.
6. “Israel brings the stability of developed markets and the outsized growth potential of emerging markets,” according to Steven Schoenfeld, the founder of BlueStar Indexes. “Israel is a [world] leader in GDP growth, debt-to-GDP ratio and demographics. Israel is a home to scores of world-leading companies that otherwise wouldn’t be in investors’ portfolios…. Israel is one of the best performing economies among developed markets…. Israeli tech was up about 28% last year; it’s up 14% this year…. Israel is one of the rare developed economies that has a young and growing population…. Israel is the second-most-vibrant ecosystem after Silicon Valley. It has the most startups per capita, the most venture capital per capita…. Israel has huge trade relations with India, Latin America, Africa and Asia. More than a third of its trade and investment is coming from Asia…. China wants to play a role in Israel’s industries (ETF.com, July 25).”
7. Israel’s defense budget was 31.6% of GDP in 1973, 11% in 1991, 6% in
2005 and 5% in 2017 (Globes, July 25).