Israel’s Shin Bet, Tel Aviv University Announce Third Accelerator Cohort

The Israel Security Agency, also known by its Hebrew acronym Shin Bet, and Tel Aviv University’s venture arm TAU Ventures announced Monday the launch of the third cohort of their accelerator program Xcelerator this week. The new cohort will host six startups in fields including speech recognition, real-time video analysis, and cybersecurity. The Shin Bet will grant $50,000 to participating startups without acquiring equity.

Since the launch of the accelerator in July 2018, 15 startups have participated in the program, according to TAU Ventures’ statement.

Another Israeli security agency involved in the local startup scene is the Mossad, which launched a tech innovation fund called Libertad Ventures in 2017. The fund announced it has made its first investments in March 2018.