Israeli AI Tech Leads the Way

As cliché as it may sound, artificial intelligence (AI) is the future of our world. To that effect, it should be no surprise that Israel is one of the leaders in this field. Whether it be in detecting sleep apnea, diabetes treatment or helping the blind see. Israel is leading the way. According to Forbes, between 2014 to 2018 Israel saw a 120% increase in AI-based companies. In raw numbers that is an increase from 512 to 1,150 companies in a span of 4 years. In 2018 Intel announced that it would invest 11 billion USD in order to build a new chip plant in the Israeli city of Kiryat Gat in addition to the development of an AI in the Technion Institute. On top of all this, companies such as; Google, IBM ad Microsoft all built R&D centers. Start-Up Nation Central reported that AI companies comprise a total of 17% of all Israeli tech start-ups.

Proportionally, 32% of total funding and 37% of total capital raised went to artificial intelligence companies. On top of that, the total amount of capital raised by AI companies tripled between 2014 to 2018 from 516 million USD to 2.25 billion USD. 2018 was an especially good year for Israeli AI-related exits which totaled an around 850 million USD in acquisition sales.

As per usual Israeli innovation is leading the AI world in healthcare. Companies such as OrCam and Nutrigo are two of the most successful AI companies. The company OrCam uses AI technology to help the blind see. They have developed eyeglasses that will take a picture of a page of a book and read it out loud to the user. This is only one example of what they can do. Nutrigo sold for a reported 100 USD. The list goes on with around 146 Israeli start-ups based in the healthcare sector.

Prospects are good for the industry with only a few of these companies having exited. More can be expected to sell in the near future.