“Sometimes the world needs a crisis”

“There is a saying in Hebrew that the Jewish, or rather, the Israeli mind comes up with new inventions and this notion probably leaked from the military to nanotechnology or from establishing a Kibbutz to AI. From a young, low resource country that needed to absorb 1 million immigrants to breakthroughs in science, medicine, robotics and agriculture,” Timor Arbel-Sadras, CEO at LeumiTech said of the adversity Israel had to overcome. “The scale-up nation of today had to go through a challenge and emerge stronger.”

Speaking at the Mind the Tech Conference in New York, Arbel-Sadras noted that “Those of us who will respond to the market, to come up with the right technology, to adapt operation and business models, will stay on course and be able to break through. Previous crises have proven that tech companies are the first to overcome them and reap the fruits of recovery.”

Arbel-Sadras concluded: “Cash is king. Raising capital is a barrier to entry and it is a good thing that the barrier is once again high. It's a good thing that it is hard to raise money. It's good for stakeholders, it's good for the economy, it's good for employees, it's good for investors etc. Finally, it is also good for the banks. A crisis helps us sharpen our senses and our gut feelings and the most effective navigation tool now is flexibility.”

You can watch the full presentation in the video above.