Winners and Losers of the Week: the Israeli Autotech Industry Tops This Week’s List

This week’s winners are:

The Israeli Autotech industry. The EcoMotion 2019 smart mobility show was a very high profile event that managed to aim the focus of the international automotive industry on the fast-growing Israeli autotech sector.

Automakers Renault and Nissan announced the opening of a Tel Aviv innovation lab. Read more

While launching a research center in Tel Aviv, Bill Ford, executive chairman of American carmaker Ford, praised the Israeli ecosystem and its innovation abilities. Read more

GM’s R&D center, which is already managing a team of 400 employees, is looking to hire another 100 engineers, developers and researchers. Read more

State-owned company Ayalon Highways is overseeing a tender for the creation of autonomous vehicle testing sites throughout Israel. Read more

Russian multinational technology company Yandex conducted the first demonstration rides in one of the autonomous vehicles it is currently testing in Israel. Read more

Hyundai partnered with in-car injury detection startup MDGo. Read more

LiDAR startup Innoviz raised an additional sum of $38 million, bringing its series C funding round to $170 million. Read more

Israeli carsharing company Car2Go announced an expansion to Europe. Read more

Car communications startup Autotalks partners with smart mobility startup NoTraffic. Read more

Israel-based NFT unveiled design for flying electric car. Read more

This week’s Losers are:

Israeli universities, for going down on the list of top 100 global universities which were granted U.S. patents. Tel Aviv University dropped two places compared to 2017, ranking 66th with 37 patents, Technion dropped to 75th place, compared to 35th place the year before, and The Hebrew University of Jerusalem did not even make the cut this year. Read more  

This week’s data point: 14

more and more kibbutzim have repurposed their wheat and corn fields for growing cannabis. Today, 14 out of 270 Israeli kibbutzim are either active growers of cannabis or in advanced stages of entering the domain. In the industry, estimates are that a third of Israel’s kibbutzim are considering a pivot. Read more

This week’s top deals: 

Fiverr listed 5 million shares on NYSE at $21 per share. Read more

Viola Growth raised third, $280 million fund. Read more

Kornit Digital aims to raise $130 million in public offering. Read more

Originally founded in Israel, London-headquartered sports media company MinuteMedia raised $40 million. Read more

IGP led $59 million round in real estate marketing company McMakler. Read more