Last updated on Nov 29, 2018
Startup landscape maps remain one of the best ways to showcase the scope and depth of a vertical. It’s been a while since I posted the collection of Israeli startup landscapes on VC Cafe, so here’s a “fresh” batch on Block chain, retail tech, cyber, AI/ML, Fintech, Industry 4.0, IOT, Agritech and others. The industry moves fast (even in a small ecosystem like Israel), so those that are over 6 months old may be outdated already.
Industry 4.0
Israel is home to more than 150 Industry 4.0 start-ups, which collectively attracted 11% of all global venture capital invested in the field in 2017. These innovative companies create and produce a range of disruptive technologies that are leading this field into the next decade. Industry 4.0 is all about revolutionary technologies that aim to connect physical industrial assets with digital insights, while digitizing the entire chain of production, and Israeli innovation is a significant part of this, helping to solve challenges faced by global industrial corporate entities.
Agritech
Israel now has more than 400 startups working on innovations for the global agriculture sector, including drought and water efficiency, crop productivity and waste management.
Travel tech
A Community of over 300 Israeli travel tech startups have set their sights on this US$8 trillion a year industry. With a booming tech ecosystem that has produced companies such as Mobileye, Waze, Gett, Moovit, and many more, Israel is currently the country with the most potential for innovation in the travel space.
Blockchain
The Israeli Blockchain Association has released its Israeli Blockchain Startup map, which details more than 60 startups in the country. The association works to educate and grow the Israeli blockchain community, as well as helping to develop best practices.
Automotive and Mobility
In February 2018, Vertex Ventures released an updated version to the Automotive landscape they produce in 2016. They note that a few things have changed:
Automotive Israeli start-ups raised close to $350M since we published our first map in June 2016. Companies in the fields of Autonomous Driving and Connect Cars raised the highest amount out of all sectors.
Self Driving Cars
A number of major international auto makers have already established a foothold in Israel, and many auto executives visit the country on a regular basis. Detroit-based General Motors has already opened a research center in Israel, while Renault and Daimler are opening facilities as well. Other companies, including Ford, Honda, Toyota, Subaru, BMW, Mazda, Hyundai, Volvo and Audi are all active in the Israeli market.
Machine learning Infrastructure
The number of Israeli startups operating in the machine learning infrastructure market, is disproportionate to the size of the country. There are a bevy of startups who have raised significant rounds of financing in an effort to bring their customized hardware, devops, annotation/tagging and machine learning as a service to market.
Cybersecurity
Israel attracts 20% of the global venture funding into cybersecurity, and has over 500 active startups. Naturally, there’s more than one landscape :)
Retail Tech 
The Israeli RetailTech ecosystem is growing and rapidly becoming one of the hottest hubs for commerce technologies, with over 250 startups operating across the board from logistics to in-store. Together, the selected 100 startups have raised more than $880M, an average of around $9M per company.
AR/VR
Recently, Israel has become a hotbed for augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR) technologies. Historically, the Israeli Air Force has been an active developer of head mounted display (HMD) vision technologies, and Apple is rumored to have 1,000 engineers in Israel working on an AR headset. Big exits in the computer vision field (such as Mobileye) further lend the small country significant credibility in the space.
Braintech
As of 2017, there are approximately 1,450 life science companies in Israel across several sub-sectors such as Medical Devices (40%), Healthcare IT (17%) and Therapeutics (14%).etween 100 to 120 of those are BrainTech companies that are dealing with brain-related illnesses and traumas, according to Israel Brain Technologies (IBT). Supported by the government, strong academia, NPOs, accelerators, investors as well as the international community, Israel is on the right track to be the ‘Brain Nation’, on top of its current status as the ‘Startup Nation’ as envisioned by Shimon Peres. Here is a snapshot of the key players in Israel’s Healthcare BrainTech startup ecosystem across various roles and sub-sectors.
Food Tech
According to the IVC Magazine Sep 2018 issue, the Israeli tech ecosystem 311 startups operating in the food technology space. In a special feature in partnership with The Kitchen, an Israeli foodtech hub. Food tech is Israel also marked one of Israel’s largest exits – Israeli company Frutarom was acquired by American MNC International Flavors & Fragrances (IFF) for over $7 billion.
Prop Tech
Mobility
Viola did a great piece on mobility in September 2018. While mobility today is mainly focused on in-vehicle technologies, the expectation is that the next wave will focus on solutions connecting the vehicle to its environment and introduce mobility services that leverage new innovative technologies. The majority of the Israeli mobility companies we have identified require ongoing venture funding. Total money raised has grown from about $180M in 2015, with a median deal size of less than $3M, to $730M in 2017 with a median deal size of $6M.
Fintech
The success of Israel’s FinTech industry is already widely recognized by leading global financial institutions and service providers, and the future is still full of possibilities. The landscape was created by Viola, and most recently updated in Oct 2018.
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Of course not all startups are captured by landscapes. In the past few weeks I covered several spotlights on Israeli startup verticals including Israeli adtech and martech, tech for the elderly, sports tech among others. An updated version of one of my favourite verticals, Artificial Intelligence is coming soon I’ve been told.
I'm a former general partner at google ventures, head of Google for Entrepreneurs in Europe and founding head of Campus London, Google's first physical hub for startups.
I'm also the founder of Techbikers, a non-profit bringing together the startup ecosystem on cycling challenges in support of Room to Read. Since inception in 2012 we've built 11 schools and 50 libraries in the developing world.
