More Venture Capitalists

Last Tuesday - July 6th - the Smith team drove down to Herzliya - a suburb of Tel Aviv - for a series of meetings and company visits. Our first stop of the morning was at Better Place, which I've already detailed in two previous posts (here and here). After finishing our meeting at Better Place, we traveled to Benchmark Capital. Later in the afternoon, we had our final visit of the day at the offices of Pitango Capital.

Upon arrival at Benchmark Capital, our first visit was with Shai-Lee Spigelman, the Marketing Manager for Microsoft's Israel R&D Center. Shai-Lee talked with us about the Microsoft experience in Israel. In other words, the when, why, and how they entered the market. She focused primarily on the most relevant aspects related to research and in particular research for a larger multinational corporation. It was my takeaway that Microsoft (as do a lot of other companies) rely on their Israeli team for some of their most difficult problems and tasks. They also see Israel as a focal point for innovation, as exemplified through their ThinkNext conference. All that aside, there are at times difficulties both cultural and logistic in coordinating between headquarters and Israel.

"Microsoft's Shai-Lee discusses R&D in Israel" 
Photo by Kristin Thompson

Following our talk with Shai-Lee, we heard a series of impromptu comments by Ellie Wurtman, a general partner at Benchmark. Ellie briefly talked to us about Benchmark's current investment portfolio, as well as the perceived risks he sees going forward for both his firm and also the broader venture capital market, given current conditions. Ellie then introduced us to the second presenter of the day, Avichay Nissenbaum, the country manager for AOL Israel and the CEO of Yedda Inc.

"Avichay Nissenbaum giving his start-up to buy-out story"
Photo by Kristin Thompson

The Yedda story is a prime example of a start-up success - and more specifically a start-up that succeeded through the investment and backing of venture capital. The name Yedda comes from the Hebrew word for "knowledge". Founded in late 2006, Yedda is a website built to share knowledge with others by asking and answering questions. What I believe is most interesting about the Yedda story is that they were not the first mover in this space. In fact at the time of launch, Yahoo Answers, Wondir, and Google Answers were already offering similar services. Yedda differentiated themselves based on a number of unique offerings as well as through selling their service as a Q&A platform for other independent sites. Traffic grew rapidly over the first year and by November 2007 they had been acquired by AOL - which has subsequently integrated Yedda into their existing website(s).

Our final meeting of the day was at Pitango Capital. Founded in 1996, Pitango was Israel's first major venture capital firm. Over the past 14 years they have invested over $1.3 billion in 120+ portfolio companies. Pitango has been involved in many of the most successful Israeli ventures over this time period. Our host was Chemi Peres, co-founder of the firm and son of Shimon Peres, former Prime Minister and current President of Israel. Chemi is one of the most well connected and experienced venture capitalists in Israel.

"The team listens closely as Chemi Peres talks business"
Photo by Kristin Thompson

For about an hour and a half, Chemi provided us a comprehensive overview of the current Israeli economic condition. He definitely had some insights (very pragmatic/realistic) that surprisingly (i.e. Israeli people are notoriously blunt) we hadn't heard yet during our time in Israel. Following this, Chemi then drilled down on the story behind one of Pitango's original venture investments - VocalTech Communications. In many ways, VocalTech exemplifies both a "great" venture capital investment as well as "flawed" investment. It was great in that it delivered a high return on capital. Concomitantly, the venture did not originally go as far as it could have in capturing the value of the space. Other players (e.g. Skype) came late, yet gained more - mostly because they took greater risks. VCs - though they seem risk seeking - are actually as risk averse (if not more so) then most investors. Lesson learned.

Cleantech Visits

Once again the Smith team was on the road for a day of company visits - this time focused on cleantech, medical device, and consumer goods firms. On Wednesday morning, we departed from our home in Haifa. Our first stop of the day was the cleantech (agribusiness) firm, Kaiima. Afterwords, we traveled to Misgav for visits with The Misgav Venture Accelerator and Signal Business Development. Later that afternoon, the team traveled to the Naot Shoe Factory at Kibbutz Neot Mordechai in the Upper Galilee.

After a long drive (due mostly to traffic), we arrived in Kfar Tavor and our first meeting of the day, Kaiima. Formerly - Biofuel International - Kaiima was founded in 2006 and is located in the Galilee region of northern Israel. They are an agro-biotech company that develops and uses proprietary, non-transgenic, technologies to boost inherent crop productivity. In particular, the company has developed a Clean Genome Multiplication (CGM™) technology to produce new, non-genetically modified, crops with dramatically improved productivity and improved land and water-use efficiencies. Use of these high-performance varieties and thoughtful agricultural practices can enable farmers all over the world to generate more food and more energy, while sustaining resources.

Photo by Stephen Kushner

 

Our host for the morning was Dr. Doron Gal, the CEO and co-founder of Kaiima. Dr. Gal walked us through a presentation on the history of the firm. Financially, the firm is funded by one of the venture capital firms we visited previously this summer, DFJ-Tamir Fishman. After Dr. Gal's presentation, he answered questions on the underlying technology - its current potential - and also possible future research and development plans. Following the presentation, we had the opportunity to see Kaiima's greenhouses in person. After a short 10 minute drive from their offices, we were on-site. In person, the company's technology was even more impressive than ever could be communicated through slides alone.

Photo by Daniel Branscome

From Kaiima we traveled to our next meeting of the day in Misgav. The Misgav Technology Center (now known as The Misgav Venture Accelerator), was founded in 1992 as an incubator with a focus in medical devices, biotechnology, and pharmaceutical companies. Originally founded publicly by the local council in conjunction with Rafael, Misgav was recently partially privatized through a $2 million investment from The Trendlines Group (a seed-stage investment and consulting group). Our host was Steve Rhodes, Chairman and CEO at The Trendlines Group. Steve spent much of our time with him walking us through Misgav's various portfolio companies - explaining their investment from start to finish.

Photo by Stephen Kushner

 

Misgav currently has 11 incubated companies and 12 “graduate” companies (i.e. pre-revenue). Misgav provides not only capital, but management experience, work space, and legal and accounting services for incubated companies. Their focus is on market research and potential, and in evaluating prospective companies they focus on both the underlying technology, and the market potential. After talking with Steve we then were joined by Tina Ornstein, the CEO of Signal Business Development. The consulting subsidiary of The Trendlines Group, Signal's job is to to provide the structure and market know-how to help Misgav's incubator companies make the leap to the next level. Tina provided a brief overview of a typical Signal engagement and the key factors she focuses on for any given project. All in all, it was a very informative and engaging series of meetings.

Photo by Stephen Kushner

 

The last visit of the day was to the Naot Shoe Factory at Kibbutz Neot Mordechai. The team arrived at the factory in the late afternoon. Opened in 1942, Naot started out as a small kibbutz factory producing work boots. Currently, it employs 160 workers and designs a new line of footwear every year. Their products include a variety of shoes and sandals for men, women and children with special insoles that conform to the shape of the wearer's foot. Naot exports its products to countries worldwide with eighty percent of its products are sold outside of Israel. Major markets include the United States, Canada, Germany and Australia.

Photo by Stephen Kushner

 

After a brief (and somewhat impromptu) tour of the Naot factory, a few team members bought shoes, some for themselves and others as gifts. Shortly thereafter, the team hopped in the bus for the ride back to Haifa - another productive day of company visits in the books.

The Entrepreneurs

Over the past few weeks, the Smith team has benefited from a number of impromptu on-campus meetings and events at the Technion. I've covered some of these in previous posts - such as the bi-weekly e-club meetings, the business ethics seminar, and the Shai Agassi speech. Additionally, in two other instances we've been able to meet with a pair of established Israeli entrepreneurs and discuss with them, both their current and future ventures. These two meetings were very interesting and I think it's definitely worth relating a little about each meeting and describe each entrepreneur.

Photo by Stephen Kushner

A few weeks back we had a chance to meet with Gil Perlberg. Formerly a VP for Business Development at Traceguard, an Israeli military and defense technology firm, Gil is currently the CEO & Founder of a new start-up, Ceronyx. This firm, Ceronyx, develops ceramic nanocomposites that address the increasing demand for advanced ceramic products in high growth fields, such as ceramic armor, cutting tools and medical applications, including ceramic implants for the hip and knee joints. Ceronyx's development is based on a proprietary technology platform developed by Prof. Wayne Kaplan, from the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology. This is still very early stage - which made all that more interesting.

Last Thursday, we met with Dr. Ze'ev Ganor. Currently an adjunct professor (and one of our judges in class) at the Technion, Ze'ev has been a successful entrepreneur for many years. Over the course of an hour, Ze'ev walked us through his many past ventures, covering both his successes and failures. After his stint in the Israeli military and college at the Technion, Ze'ev began his career at Computer Consoles Inc. (CCI) a US-based voice processing and computer software firm. Through a connection at CCI, he was a principal investor with a start-up that developed a new medical technology, Digital Subtraction Angiography (DSA). This technology - a precursor to the MRI - was sold to Elscint for $70 million after 4 years. After this success, Ze'ev had the entrepreneurial bug. Other significant investments and start-ups Ze'ev has been involved with have included ChipX, Nanomotion, and Fiberzone.

Altogether, these meetings were a great opportunity for the Smith team to talk one on one for Q&A with two highly active entrepreneurs. Both Gil and Ze'ev - though they come from very different backgrounds - offered us a terrific inside look at the many diverse challenges faced by entrepreneurs and early stage investors.

Company Visits, pt1

Once again, I'm a few days later than I'd like writing about one of our many events. As is probably already evident, we've had a really packed schedule this summer in Israel. It seems like at any moment we've been on the road - always either heading to or from our next engagement. From technology conferences and historical sightseeing, to company visits and business meetings, the Smith team has been busy, busy, busy!

Anyway, on to the issue at hand. Last Sunday, June 13, we had the opportunity to engage with three different Israeli companies. In our first meeting we met one-on-one with a founding partner of an Israeli venture capital firm at our hotel in Jerusalem. In the other two we did so through on-site meetings and visits at each of the other two company's headquarters, both located in the city of Be'er Sheva.

Photo by Kristin Thompson

Our first meeting of the day was with Israel CleanTech Ventures (ICV). Established in 2006, ICV is the first Israel-focused cleantech venture capital fund - dedicated to providing value added growth capital to entrepreneurs specializing in energy, water, and environmental technologies. ICV raised $75 million for its first fund in 2007, drawn from a diverse (predominantly European and American) client base, which included Robeco, Piper Jaffray, as well as other institutional investors and family offices.

Our guide to Israel CleanTech Ventures was Glen Schwaber, a founding partner and originally a native of Boston, who emigrated from the United States to Israel in 1994. Glen has a wealth of experience in the Israeli investment community, having begun his career at Jerusalem Global, a private equity firm for Israeli hi-tech start-ups before transitioning to Jerusalem Venture Partners, one of the most successful venture capital firms in Israel, and then later founding ICV with two other initial partners.

Unlike a few of our previous VC meetings - where our hosts spent a significant portion of the meeting talking generally about the market in Israel - Glen dove right into a detailed discussion of a few current portfolio company investments - as well as the Israeli cleantech sector in general. Over the course of about an hour, Glen walked our group through an analysis of ICV's strategy, including a thorough breakdown of their investment criteria, market approach, and screening process.

There were two portfolio companies I found particularly interesting. The first was CellEra, which is a a fuel-cell company with a revolutionary new type of fuel cell, the Platinum-Free Membrane Fuel Cell (PFM-FC). CellEra's solution eliminates major cost components in current fuel-cells, such as very expensive platinum. The second investment was in a firm, Scodix, which has developed a revolutionary Digital UV Embossing press. The machine and associated process are inherently environmentally friendly - the process requires no plates or silk, minimum electricity power, and results in virtually no printing waste.

All together, our meeting with Glen was really interesting, and no doubt about it, ICV's current portfolio investments (and investment strategy generally) are really cutting edge!

Hi-Tech Israel

Well it's been a few days since my last post and the Smith team has been as busy as ever! After a relaxing weekend, we departed Haifa before sunrise on Tuesday for the drive down to Jerusalem to participate in the 2010 High Tech Industry Association Conference.

The conference, which ran for two days, was held at the Jerusalem International Convention Center and brought together industry professionals, technology experts, and venture capitalists. Starting at 9AM, the event kicked off with Israel's Mister of Finance, Dr. Yuval Steinitz, as well as other honored dignitaries remotely starting the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange.

"The opening bell of the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange"
Photo by Stephen Kushner

Topics covered during the conference ranged from the future of mobile computing to strategies for market entry into high-tech in China and India. Additionally, there were a number of headline speakers during the two day event including, the godfather of Israeli high-tech venture capital, Yossi Vardi, and Israel's Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

"Prime Minister Netanyahu talks about Israel's technology future"
Photo by Stephen Kushner

During the two day event, the Smith team had an amazing opportunity to hear from key thought leaders in Israel's high-tech and investment community. Given our ongoing tech commercialization projects at the Technion, some of the contacts we made and presentations we heard had an immediate and practical resonance. Other speakers we saw were interesting more from a general professional development standpoint.

"The Smith team at the hi-tech conference"
Photo by Stephen Kushner

Given the compressed schedule during the two days in Jerusalem, we didn't have too much time to explore outside the conference. That being said, we did get a brief tour of the Old City (courtesy of the conference organizers) on Tuesday night - where we were to have a preview of the Festival of Lights (which was unfortunately canceled due to technical difficulties). We met our guide just outside the Jaffa Gate and then walked past the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, ending at a rooftop overlooking the Wailing Wall. Really impressive!

"Steve captures the Western Wall at night"
Photo by Stephen Kushner

On Wednesday night, after the end of the conference, the team met on Ben Yehuda Street - one of the more popular shopping streets in Jerusalem. We spent about an hour shopping and window gazing. Afterwords, we walked up to Sami's restaurant for a final dinner before hitting the road back to Haifa. 

"The team enjoys an amazing schwarma dinner in Jerusalem" 
Photo by Stephen Kushner

All in all, it was a very successful two days in Jerusalem! We'll be heading back for a more historical and culturally centered visit tomorrow.

First Presentations

As I discussed back in the first week of our trip (here and here), groups of one or two of our Smith team have been partnered with an equivalent number of MBA students from the Technion. Together, our combined teams have been assigned technology patents - for which we are creating commercialization strategies. Last Thursday, June 3, we made our first presentations in class at the Technion. Our first presentation was focused on five potential applications of the technology, evaluating possible customers, suggesting hypothetical value propositions, market sizes, technological issues, and building revenue models. Our analysis was meant to establish a baseline for our project going forward.

"Me - surrounded by Asher and the VCs"
Picture by Stephen Kushner

Our presentations were conducted in front of a panel of Israeli and American venture capitalists. The Israeli culture (and the VC culture also for that matter) that we'd been told so much about, but hadn't quite experienced was in full effect. Time and time again during the night, each of us was put us on the spot, our analysis and assumptions totally dissected. We hardly had time to explain our next point before we were barraged with another set of questions. Everyone was definitely feeling the pressure!

"Don, looking pleased after presenting about his UAV tech"
Picture by Stephen Kushner

Despite the tough treatment, the presentations overall were still really well received. One VC, who had judged the same class the previous year said that the presentations were significantly improved. One or two of our Israeli classmates shouted out that this was because of "the Americans", which was a nice compliment.  At 10pm, after the last team had finally finished presenting, we were all pretty wound up by the experience. That being said, everyone seemed to agree that it was one of the best experiences we've had so far in Israel.

First Three Weeks

As we approach the end of the our first three weeks in Israel, I think it's probably as good a time as any to provide a recap of where we've been so far. I'll try and do this a few times this summer in order to fill in any new readers on anything they may have missed. Anyway, the past weeks have certainly gone by quickly. We've seen and done quite a bit. In fact, it's actually hard to believe how much we've been able to fit in to such a short amount of time.

Pre-Departure: in the weeks leading up to the trip I blogged here and here about the reasons why I believe Israel is important and what are the unique characteristics that have lead to Israel's economic and technological achievements of the past few decades. Start-up Nation - the unofficial handbook of our trip - was mentioned on a few occasions. On April 29, the team celebrated the beginning of the program, while also recognizing the contributions of the program's many generous donors, at an evening reception in Washington, D.C., hosted by Miles Gilburne and Nina Zolt.

Week 1: After months of planning and hours of travel, the Smith team finally arrived in Tel Aviv, Israel, passed through customs, and then made the hour long drive up the coast to Haifa - our home for the summer. The first few days were set aside for us to get acclimated to our new surroundings. The fact that we'd arrived during the holiday of Shavuot certainly helped keep things quiet that first night. By Thursday we'd had a chance to settle in and proceeded to the Technion for our first class and to meet our Israeli teammates.  The projects were finalized and the patent creators presented on each of their technologies. On the weekend we toured the city of Haifa - the German Colony and the Baha'i Gardens - and then traveled north for visits to Rosh Hanikra and Acre.

Week 2: The second week began slowly - with Monday through Wednesday working at our office at the Technion. I blogged about the Israeli business culture here. On Wednesday we had a presentation from the Technion Entrepreneurship Club. Then on Thursday, we had our second class with presentations from the Technion incubator and our project leader Asher Epstein, among others. At the end of the week we departed Haifa for a weekend visit to Tel Aviv. Friday morning we had a brief meeting with Israel's Warren Buffet, Yossi Vardi. Later that afternoon, we went on a guided tour of the city - from Jaffa and Neve Tzedek to the Hacarmel Market. Saturday we were free to explore on our own - or head to the beach - as a few folks did. It was awesome! Before heading back to Haifa, on Sunday we had meetings at two venture capital firms, Tamir Fishman and AquAgro Fund, where we met with Moshe Levin and Hillel Milo respectfully. Altogether it was a busy but exciting week!

Week 3: At the beginning of the week a political and military incident drew the eyes of the world to the coast off of Israel and the Gaza Strip. Early on in the week, our resident video blogger, Stephen Kushner, posted the first (of five) major trip videos on the site. Wednesday found us once again at the Technion Entrepreneurship Club for a presentation by one of our program's benefactors, Rick Zitelman. Rick gave a talk on business ethics (here) from a Jewish perspective, as well as comments on investing in general (here). On Thursday we had our first major presentation of the trip. In class we gave 30 minute presentations on our technologies and five potential markets to a panel of local Israeli venture capitalists. [More on this event to appear later this week]. On Thursday, my photo from our house in Haifa was featured on The Atlantic. This weekend the team has been enjoying free time at the beach, while getting ready for next week, when we'll be heading to Jerusalem for the High Tech Industry Association Conference.

Ethical Investing, pt2

In my previous blog post, I covered the first half of Rick Zitelman's presentation to the Technion Entrepreneurship Club on ethics and investing. After concluding his discussion of Jewish business ethics, Rick transitioned to a more general presentation on investing in Israel and investing overall. 

"Anne, Kelley, and Don chatting with Rick Zitelman"
Photo by Kristin Thompson

For many years, Rick has been an investor in companies - as a venture capitalist - as well as a principal advisor to other investors and investment firms. Further, he has been (and currently is) an investor in Israeli companies. As such, he has a wide range of hard won advice to offer to investors - especially those looking to invest in Israel.

In regards to investing in general, Rick offered nine "rules" to live by ...

• There is money and then there is SMART money.
• Smart investors invest in people - passion and potential are critical.
• Remember, it ALWAYS takes longer and costs more.
• It's better to have more capital than less.
• It's better to have a small piece of a big pie, than a big piece of a small pie.
• Protect your IP, but remember, it takes a lot of money and time.
• Play to your strengths and learn to work with your weaknesses.
• There are three types of investors: Lead, Co-, and Passive.
• Valuations are never easy. Take your time and do your homework.

As you can imagine, hearing Rick's thoughts about investing in Israel (specifically his views on the American perspective) was also of keen interest to the Israeli Technion students in the audience - especially those involved in high-tech start-ups - or those considering starting their own ventures. For them, Rick had a few key pieces of wisdom.

• Investors look for reasons not to invest. Don't let poor communication be why.
• Time differences can play havoc. Be prepared to work odd hours.
• When dealing with America, Shabbat removes a significant portion of the week.
• As a deal develops, it becomes good to have partners in both the US and Israel. 

Rick concluded his talk by discussing a final criteria for new ventures in Israel. According to Rick, the Israeli government's Office of Chief Scientist (as well as many other local incubators) offer lucrative sources of early stage financing. However, he indicated that investors and firms should really do their homework before signing onto one of these partnerships, as there are significant pros and cons to following this path. The avenues available for exit can narrow if a firm accepts investment from these entities.

Rick's talk was really well received. He offered both the Smith School and Technion students a great overview of Jewish business ethics, investing, and investing in Israel.

Venture Capitalists, pt2

Following our successful vist with Moshe Levin at DFJ Tamir Fishman, we hopped in our bus and drove across Tel Aviv for our second meeting of the day. After a quick lunch, we made our way upstairs and into the offices of AquAgro Fund. This fund, which is a subsidiary of one of Israel's largest conglomerates, Gaon Holdings, is a venture capital fund focused on cleantech technologies and investments.

Our meeting was facilitated by one the fund's primary managing partners, Hillel Milo. Like our previous speaker, Mr. Milo is about as experienced as one gets in the Israeli venture capital industry. He co-founded one of the earliest VC firms in Israel. Further, he has a wealth of other venture and industry experience. Hillel has quite a presence in a room. He was able to present non-stop for 45 minutes, with no notes - easily calling up data and information from his mind - while at the same time keeping us captivated. By the end of our meeting we all wished we'd had more time to pick his brain.

"The team meets with Hillel Milo of AquAgro"
Photo by Kristin Thompson

Unlike the previous meeting we'd just attended, Hillel decided to focus specifically on a few of the current cleantech investments that AquAgro is engaged in right now. Further, Hillel gave us a great breakdown of the specific sectors that he believes constitute the cleantech market. Lastly, he gave us an overview of the primary criteria he (and his team) utilize when evaluating potential investments.

If our previous meeting had been about where Israel has been, our meeting with Hillel was about where Israel is going. For example, AquAgro is invested in a firm, Desalitech, which has invented a revolutionary method to create affordable and scalable water desalination. Another investment is in Evogene, a biotech firm that has created (and patented) over 400 novel genes to radically improve crop yields. One final company we discussed is Variable Wind, who has a technology that brings wind energy costs into parity with fossil fuels.

Altogether, our two meetings were both highly engaging and highly informative. Both were great introductions into the Israeli venture capital market. Further, each touched on both traditional and emerging investment spaces (e.g. cleantech). Next week, the team will be heading to Jerusalem to participate in a two day business conference focused on high tech.

Venture Capitalists, pt1

I'm definitely quite a bit late in getting a post out about this, but every time I thought I'd have a free moment to start putting down my thoughts, I'd get distracted by something else. Anyway, better late than never! 

This past Sunday, May 30th, the team visited two venture capital firms in the Tel Aviv area before returning back to Haifa in the late afternoon. Our meetings at both locations lasted a little over an hour, and in both instances we were given an opportunity to ask questions. Given the differences in each visit, I've decided to break up my coverage of each into two separate posts.

The first meeting was at DFJ Tamir Fishman, the local affiliate of Menlo Park, CA based Draper, Fisher, Jurvetson (DFJ). DFJ and its worldwide partner organizations (including DFJ Tamir Fishman) manage a portfolio of companies and assets worth approximately $6 billion. DFJ Tamir Fishman itself is actually the venture capital subsidiary of the larger Tamir Fishman Group, which is a full-service financial management firm.

At DFJ Tamir Fishman, our host and point of contact was Moshe Levin. Currently a managing general partner, Moshe is a 25 year veteran of the Israeli venture capital industry, having previously served as a partner at  Pitango, Israel's largest VC firm. It was pretty clear from the get go that Moshe would be able to offer us a wealth of information and experience - and we were not disappointed.

Moshe's presentation was in some respects a recap of Start-up Nation. That being said, his presentation did dig into some prime examples of Israeli created technologies that many of us had not been aware prior to our meeting. I realize I've already gone into some of this in previous posts, but it still bares repeating.

It is quite extraordinary how many technologies - upon which our current global economy is based - that were created in Israel. To be honest, these contributions are drastically out of proportion relative to the size of this country, its population, or its economy. Listed below are a just a few of these technologies as well as the Israeli (or Israeli subsidiary) that was responsible for each creation.

• Pentium PC - Intel
• Centrino - Intel
• IP Networking - RadWare, Allot
• Flash Memory - M-Systems
• Stents - Medinol
• Generic Drugs - Teva
• Voice Mail - Comverse
• Instant Messaging - ICQ (Acquired by AOL)
• Cable Modems - Libit (Acquired by TI), Terayon
• Cordless Phones - DSPC (Acquired by Intel)
• Cellular - TI
• 3G Cellular - Modem Art
• VoIP - Vocaltec, AudioCodes
• AntiVirus - Symantec
• Firewalls - CheckPoint

Seriously, it is astonishing the range of technological innovations that have emerged from Israel over the past twenty years! From the internet, to personal and portable computers, to telecommunications, and medical devices, each of the above technologies was critical to the development and evolution of these markets and industries. Given their impacts, it would be hard to imagine a world in which these technologies had not been invented.