Israel is a major tech hub in the region. There are more than 100 venture capital funds actively operating in the country. Local funds raised over $3 billion in 2018. Telaviv, Haifa, and Jerusalem are the main locations for startups as well as venture capitalists and angel investors. Telaviv alone hosts more than 1500 startups and has the most startups per capita across the globe. Venture capitals invested around $2 billion in 2018 throughout the country.
Most active funds are OurCrowd, Magma Venture Partners, Pitango Venture Capital, Vertex Ventures and Jerusalem Venture Partners.
Local VCs generally eye on seed and early-stage companies particularly in telecommunications and components, cybersecurity, software, semiconductors, e-commerce, biotech, cleantech, fintech, and medical devices.
Israel’s venture capital market has been very active since the early 2000s while the private equity industry had lagged behind. However, in recent years private equity firms have found a new opportunity window with the maturing startups in need of larger funding in their later growth stages.
Israel’s unicorns are software management provider Monday.com, ride-hailing app Gett, monetization tool for game developers IronSource, photo editing apps developer Lighttricks, wearable devices developer OrCam.