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Business
A Historic Delegation to the StartUp Nation
By Eran Shay, President, Gibraltar- Israel Chamber of Commerce
At the beginning of March, a business delegation from Gibraltar visited Israel for the first time ever. This historic delegation was led by Eran Shay and Ayelet Mamo Shay of the Gibraltar-Israel Chamber of Commerce (Gibrael) with the objective of identifying business opportunities between the two countries as well as to discover what has made Israel such a technology power-house and the source of many innovative and successful startup companies.
The delegation comprised of senior bankers, lawyers, accountants, company managers, investment managers, property consultants as well as from the maritime sector in Gibraltar. The delegates visited Israel’s three biggest cities, namely Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa, where they explored some of Israel’s leading technology hubs, startup incubators, accelerators and Venture
Capital industry. Whilst in Tel Aviv, amongst various
meetings with professional intermediaries, the delegation also participated in the Tel Aviv Fintech Week conference which this year saw heavy involvement of the UK Financial sector, including representatives from the London Stock Exchange and the Financial Conduct Authority, hoping to lure Israeli tech companies to the UK (anyone mentioned Brexit already...?).
In Jerusalem, after receiving a brief at the Israeli Ministry of Economy and by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the delegates were treated to a tour of the Israeli Parliament (Knesset) where they were warmly welcomed and congratulated by the Deputy Speaker of Knesset during a live parliamentary session. The delegation also visited the Headquarters of Jerusalem Venture Partners (JVP) - one of Israel’s pioneering Venture Capital firms, and certainly amongst the most successful ones, having taken 32 Israeli companies from StartUp stage to IPO,
raising over $1.1 Billion in investment. Moving on to Haifa, the delegation had the honour to visit Intel’s world renown labs, where the latest computer microchip processors are being developed and tested. From there, delegates continued to one of the world’s most prestigious technology institutions – the Technion. The Technion is a global leader in science research and development and in the last 15 years alone the Technion has produced 4 Noble Prize Winners in Chemistry. It is a place where people, from as young as high school age, are taught to become innovators, think outside the box and research solutions to some of the
world’s biggest problems. On the final evening, the delegation
was treated to a gala networking event, attended by some of Israel’s top business entrepreneurs, VCs, leading legal and finance sector personas along with representative from various Government agencies. Mr. Dov Moran, the inventor of the USB stick shared his story of success and the entire event (held
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Gibraltar International
www.gibraltarinternational.com