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Originally published at The Ettinger Report.

1.  The US-based Asurion (mobile phone) acquired Israel’s Soluto for $100MN (Globes Business Daily, October 31, 2013).

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2.  Israel’s Wix raised $140MN on NASDQ, determining a $600MN market value (Globes, November 7, 2013).  Israel’s Mazor Robotics raised $41MN on NASDAQ (Globes, Oct. 31).

3.  The $70BN Carlos Slim, from Mexico, led a $60MN round of private placement in Israel’s Mobli.  Slim’s investment was made via his America Movil Mexican cellular company.  In July 2013, Slim invested $40MN in Israel’s Shazam.  A September 2012 round of private placement was led by the Kazakhstan billionaire, Kenges Rakishev, the chairman of Mobli (Globes, Nov. 7).  The San Diego-based Qualcomm Ventures led a $13MN round – joined by the Silicon Valley-based San Disc Ventures and the Hong Kong-based Horizon Ventures – by Israel’s Magisto (Globes, Oct. 30).

4.  The London-based Economist Intelligence Unit, Nov. 6, 2013: “Start-Up Nation” – the name given to Israel’s cluster of high-tech companies, investors and incubators – is enjoying a boom the likes of which has not been witnessed since the global tech bubble burst more than a decade ago.  Israel’s high tech companies raised $660MN in the 3rd quarter of 2013 – the largest amount in any three month period since 2000. Those companies have also chalked up some significant recent successes, following a series of acquisitions by US-based technology companies.  The most notable was the $1BN sale of Waze to Google in June.  Since then, IBM has acquired Trusteer (combatting online banking fraud) for $650MN, Facebook has bought Onavo (mobile utility application) for an estimated $120MN and Asurion has agreed to purchase Soluto for $130MN.  Wix is launching an IPO that values the firm at around $720MN.  A host of other [Israeli] firms are planning overseas IPOs as well. Foreign venture capital fund account for the great majority of the capital invested in local start-ups…. The industry consists of thousands of start-ups…. More often than not, the start-up becomes a research and development center for the acquiring [overseas] company…joining more than 250 other such centers in Israel…. There are 70 Israeli, or Israeli-related, companies listed on NASDAQ, the most of any one country apart from the US and China…. “

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Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger is consultant to Israel’s Cabinet members and Israeli legislators, and lecturer in the U.S., Canada and Israel on Israel’s unique contributions to American interests, the foundations of U.S.-Israel relations, the Iranian threat, and Jewish-Arab issues.