Foreigners made 77% of investments in Israeli startups

Some 368 foreign multinational corporations (MNCs) are active today in Israel, with most of them starting their operations locally after acquiring a startup, leading to a growth of their activity in subsequent years.

The presence of large multinationals in Israel “is a major foundation stone” of the local industry, the report said, as they have become “knowledge hubs” that have helped inspire many new Israeli firms. Notable are the semiconductor sector, widely influenced by the presence of Intel — and the networking systems sector, influenced by companies like Cisco. Among the MNCs that are operating in Israel are Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce giant, a relatively newcomer onto the scene; Google, Bosch, AOL, Qualcomm, Facebook, Merck, IBM, Sony.

In the first three-quarters of the year, five new R&D MNC centers were set up, after 12 started operating in 2017. Of the 368 multinationals operating in Israel, 105 of these hire more than 100 employees. Intel Israel, a unit of Intel Corp. the US tech firm, is the largest MNC, with some 11,000 employees in Israel.

The majority of these corporations — 132 — operate in the IT and enterprise software fields, followed by communications — 64 firms — life-sciences — 47 — and internet, 43.

In the past five years, foreign buyers have accounted for 451 acquisition deals, out of a total of 608 merger and acquisition transactions. Of these deals, 53% of the buyers were from the US, 6% from the UK and 3% from China and Germany, IVC said.

Shoshanna Solomon