A study that examined 424 startups (private and VC-backed companies) and 70 venture capital (VC) funds that are active in Israel presents captivating data about women in the Israeli startup/tech ecosystem.

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The research reveals that the average percentage of women represented in the companies studied is 33%. However, representation of women changes based on the size of the company. Not surprisingly, larger companies tend to have higher percentages of women employees (36%) than smaller companies do (30.8%), numbers that appear to support the claim that it is harder for smaller companies to ensure a diverse workforce.

Larger companies also have larger operating systems and can put more resources into recruiting efforts, and have a greater need for human resources, legal, finance, and support jobs – positions for which women are frequently hired.

When it comes to actual tech jobs, only 27% are filled by women, with some variance depending on the company's field of specialization. The digital health sector had the most robust female representation, with women comprising 45% of employees or more at over 60% of the companies studied. Women hold at least 35% of leadership roles in digital health companies.

But overall, women hold less than one-quarter (23.4%) of leadership roles (C-level jobs, vice presidents, directors) in startup companies.

The sub-sectors of Israel's startup/technology landscape that employ the fewest women are cybersecurity, automotive, electronics, and telecommunications. The percentage of women employees in these sectors ranges from 27% to 18%.

When it comes to the driving force behind the startup industry, venture capital, only 14.8% of the partners in the 70 VC firms studies are women, and only 9% of investing partners in those companies are women.

The data were collected by the Power in Diversity initiative, a project that partners with over 220 VC funds and startup companies to promote diversity and inclusion. PID was founded by Alan Feld, funding partner at Vintage Investment Partners. Kobi Sambursky, funding partner at Glilot Capital Partners, and Sivan Shamri Dahan, managing partner and co-founder at Qumra Capital, co-chair the initiative.

"The report highlights a point of view about women working in the ecosystem which is both critical and credible. Undoubtedly, the situation is far from satisfactory. Women should fulfill many more of the leading roles in companies and VC," Dahan said.

"There is no reason why the makeup of the human factor in the ecosystem should not represent the number of women in the general population, and, furthermore, the number of qualified women for these roles. Start-ups should focus on recruiting more employees of underrepresented populations and PID is here to help them," she added.

Shahar Silis, managing director at PID, said, "Many companies are unaware of the diversity measures of their employees as well as the representation rate in the various populations.  We hope that showcasing the companies that are doing this successfully by allocating considerable resources to the implementation of diversity programs and focusing on expanding the pool of candidates that are underrepresented in the workforce will serve as an inspiration to organizations that are interested in doing more."

Sambursky said he believed that "2022 will be the Year of Diversity for our startup industry."

According to Sambursky, the Israeli startup ecosystem has seen an "extraordinary" few  years in terms of funding, IPOs, and unicorns, but the sector still has much work to do when it comes to diversity.

"Like startups, VC must also be proactive by employing many more women, Ethiopian Jews, Orthodox Jews, Arabs, individuals with disabilities, and other populations. The first step is full transparency," Sambursky said.

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A new initiative aims to provide special mentoring for Slovenian startup companies looking to gain a foothold in Israel.

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Last week, the Slovenian Embassy in Israel, together with public business development organization Spirit Slovenia and the Slovene Enterprise Fund, announced the launch of a new accelerator in Israel, to be managed by Arieli Capital's ETC.

The program seeks to connect selected Slovenian startups with Israeli high-tech companies, leading industry organizations, international corporations, investors, and academic institutions.

The accelerator program, which is funded by the Slovenian government, is scheduled to run in Tel Aviv from Feb. 13-April 11, and an open call for Slovenian startups is already underway, with applications accepted until mid-January, 2022.

Slovenian startups from a variety of sectors, including healthcare, fintech, foodtech, and more, are expected to take part.

"We are excited to launch the Slovenia-Israel accelerator, which will reinforce the economic and social collaboration between the growing ecosystems of both countries. The accelerator offers Slovenian startups a unique opportunity to work in the heart of one of the world's primary high-tech hubs, the startup nation of Israel," said Or Haviv, partner and head of global innovation at Arieli Capital.

"We are confident that this strategic partnership will help to advance the Slovenian startups to the forefront of the global high-tech scene," he added.

Haviv said that many countries were increasingly interested in becoming part of Israel's startup scene. "Israel became a compelling example of a tech ecosystem producing world leading innovation. Many countries would like to learn how to build a similar model," he stressed.

Slovenian Ambassador to Israel Andreja Purkart Martinez said, "Israel and Slovenia share a lot in common."

According to Martinez, "The Slovenian economy is growing fast thanks to excellent human capital, government backed investments and cutting edge research and academic institutions. We are certain that collaborating with Israel will help Slovenia's entrepreneurial and startup industry thrive and help our talented startups expand to international markets."

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As developers and engineers will tell you, knowledge sharing and code documentation have made so many of Israel's high-tech solutions possible. The challenge for companies has always been to make these necessary endeavors also cost-effective and efficient.

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This is the challenge that brought the founders of Israel-based startup Swimm together. The four engineers who founded the company worked together at the Israel Tech Challenge (ITC) coding bootcamp.

Oren Toledano, Omer Rosenbaum, Tom Ahi Dror, and Gilad Navot observed engineering teams waging a constant struggle to create and maintain documentation of their codebases, and realized that as a result of documentation problems, most companies were devoting huge amounts of resources toward tasks like debugging and problem solving instead of new coding.

Ideally, developers will document every change they make. But because they know the codebase changes daily, and they would rather use their valuable and often limited time on other problem-solving, current documentation can quickly become outdated. Creating high-quality documentation simply takes too much time and effort for many companies.

Toledano, Swimm's CEO, explains that "Swimm was created to help engineering teams better understand their code and create strong knowledge building through a new protocol we call Continuous Documentation."

"This means that every time the codebase changes, the documentation should reflect the changes automatically. This should help teams improve communication, knowledge sharing, and discoverability as they can rely on the documentation as their bible," he says.

Despite the many years of individual experience enjoyed by the founders, Swimm itself is relatively new, founded in 2019. But the company is getting noticed. In January 2020, it secured $5.7 million in seed funding, led by Pitango, with participation from TAU Ventures, Axon Ventures, Fundfire, and a group of angel investors. A year later, Swimm Beta was officially announced, offered for free to Open Source maintainers and core contributors.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in early 2020, Swimm was in the middle of an expansion, opening a new office in New York and bringing on new developers in Tel Aviv. The Alpha version of their auto-synced code documentation software proved valuable for remote onboarding and training, allowing the company to flourish in the difficult pandemic circumstances.

Swimm has big plans for 2021. "We learned a lot this year about the way developers and their teams onboard, sync and work," says Toledano.

"We got a lot of feedback from customers, who stressed the need to streamline knowledge sharing and reduce dependency delays due to remote work. The goal now is to provide a tool that's much more than just something to help developers with new coding. We want to make the entire development cycle more efficient, by actively speeding up the inner development loop, which will ultimately help every company's bottom line."

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A dozen hospitals and healthcare providers across Spain have adopted Israeli workwear management company Polytex Technologies' automated workwear solution, the company announced this week.

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Doctors and nurses will now be able to dispense and collect their uniforms hands-free using a fully automated machine.

The technology was implemented to protect healthcare workers, which has become even more critical with the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, as well as fight contamination, protect workers' health, cut costs, and maximize efficiency.

Polytex's system itself is sealed, keeping garments in a clean environment that is opened only by laundry professionals during collection and restocking. The system is available on a 24/7 basis and often installed at multiple locations enabling staff to receive and return garments in seconds, thereby avoiding unnecessary crowding.

Polytex's technology has also been adopted in hospitals across Israel, the United States, Europe, and Asia.

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Can technology move the Middle East peace process ahead? Israel and the United Arab Emirates think it can. On Monday, the UAE's first ambassador to Israel, Mohamed al Khaja, visited the headquarters of the Start-Up Nation Central nonprofit organization in Tel Aviv to kick off a joint task force that seeks to collaborate on innovation and entrepreneurship, with the ultimate goal of bringing people together, sharing idea, and generating economic value.

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Al Khaja met with CEO of Start-Up Nation Central, Professor Eugene Kandel, to discuss areas of possible collaboration as well as possibilities for joint events and conferences. The teams from the Emirati Embassy and Start-Up Nation Central also discussed ways of connecting Emirati and Israeli companies and entrepreneurs, especially in the fields of fintech, agri-food tech, education, cyber, education, digital health, energy, petrochimicals, cleantech and sustainability.

As a result of the meeting, both aides agreed to leverage the 1,000-member UAE-IL Tech Zone community, launched in December 2020, as a part of the new relationship.

Al Khaja said that in terms of technology cooperation, there was "an avenue of opportunities between the UAE and Israel just waiting to be harnessed.

"We are here to identify what sectors can prosper in the field of  technological innovation and bridge together key partnerships that will thrive in the world market with contagious success," al Khaja said, adding that "Israel's tech innovation ecosystem coupled with the future forward drive of the UAE government, are essential elements to accelerating the success of incubators through the formation of international partnerships."

Kandel said that Start-Up National Central was "proud to partner with the ambassador and the UAE government.

"We are excited to play a major role in taking advantage of the historic opportunity presented by the Abraham Accords to connect UAE and Israel around technological innovation and create an immense value," Kandel added.

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The first quarter of 2021 turned out to be a record-breaking one for Israel's cyber sector, with a number of startups in the cyber field raising a combined $1.5 billion in 17 separate deals.

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The $1.5 billion raised places Israel in second place worldwide in terms of investment, with only the US seeing a greater amount raised in the same period.

The fruitful first quarter of 2021 came on the heels of record investment in Israeli startups over the course of 2020 – which despite the COVID pandemic saw Israeli ventures raise $2.9 billion – 31% of all startup investment globally for that year.

Israel also stands out for its number of "unicorn" startups, private ventures valued at $1 billion or more. In fact, 50% (11) of all cyber unicorns are based in Israel. The US is home to another eight, followed by one unicorn each in China, Ireland, and Switzerland.

One of the most successful fundraising rounds by an Israeli startup in Q1 was secured by Orca Security, which in March 2021 closed a $210 million Series C round to bring its valuation to $1.2 billion – a mere two years after it was founded.

According to Orca Security co-founder Gil Geron, "Israeli entrepreneurs have starting building larger companies and for developing markets – for example, the the cloud security market that we operate in, which within three years will be worth about $11 billion."

Geron says that "this combination leads to more investment in Israeli cyber [ventures] because of its huge potential. We see maturation in this sector through very experienced Israeli players who know how to pick the right market in which to operate, realize its potential, and create the next huge companies in the various fields in the cyber sector. Foreign investors understand that too."

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Kobi Samboursky, founding partner at Glilot Capital, which has been investing in Israeli cyber ventures for 10 years, explains that "We we've seen throughout this past decade are cyber companies that eventually see exits and are acquired by major technology companies, mostly foreign ones. This past year, we've see that trend reverse itself. More cyber companies see themselves as here for the long term, to become really big."

Pavel Gurevich, CEO of Guardicore, offers another perspective: "The intensive investment we're seeing is a direct result of damage and risk that is occurring because of a lack of defenses. In the last quarter, we saw bigger ransomware attacks demands that ever. One was for $50 million as a result of the attack on computer manufacturer Acer."

Guardicore is considered an undisclosed unicorn, and when it announces its next fundraising round, will be valued at over $1 billion.

"The Israeli cyber sector is turning into a global success story because Israeli-global companies are bringing the security solution needed to the market," Gurevich says, adding that even the disruption caused by COVID "accelerated Israeli cyber development not only in terms of demand for security solutions, but also in terms of sales."

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Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer has partnered with Raanana-based startup Inspira Technologies to test Inspira's Augmented Respiration Technology as a treatment for patients in critical condition with COVID-19, Inspira announced Wednesday.

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Inspira Technologies describes its ART solution as the first technology in the world to directly oxygenate blood. Inspira explains that ART fills a gap in respiratory treatment where supplemental respiratory therapies such as high-pressure masks are insufficient and the risks from mechanical ventilation – such as medically-induced comas, intubation, and lung atrophy – are unjustified.

Director of the Cardiac Surgery Intensive Care Unit at Sheba Dr. Alexander Kogan said that the medical center was "very excited to test this breakthrough technology for respiratory distress."

According to Kogan, "With the ART system, hopefully, patients will remain fully conscious during their treatment. We will be able to avoid the use of mechanical ventilation until it's absolutely necessary and spare many patients from the risks of a medically-induced coma. Moreover, we anticipate further development of our novel renal replacement therapy technology for these critically ill patients with the help of Inspira."

Inspira co-founder and CEO Dagi Ben-Noon said, "Collaborating with the Sheba Medical Center is a great opportunity to test the ART system in a real-world environment and demonstrate its ease of use for medical staff and effectiveness for treating patients."

Dr. Sylvie Luria, manager of Sheba's technology transfer company, was responsible for facilitating the trial.

"When we came across Inspira's unique technology, we immediately saw its potential to transform the way we treat patients with respiratory issues," Luria said.

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The British Embassy in Israel's entrepreneurship center is teaming up with a cluster of NGOs and tech players to foster Arab-led startups in Israel in a program called MoveUp.

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Partners in the initiative include PresenTense, a non-profit organization that promotes diversity, equity and inclusion in Israel;s entrepreneurial ecosystem, Citi Foundation, the British Embassy, the UK Israel Tech Hub and with Takwin VC, which invests in Arab-led startups.

The new post-accelerator aims to assist in advanced levels of product development and provide the founders with relevant tools, consulting, guidance and networking with their next steps.

A group of 10 to 12 entrepreneurs will participate in an intensive two-month program designed to include 12 virtual group sessions led by local and UK experts in fields ranging from finance to intellectual property and more. Participant will also be connected to potential investors in Israel and the UK.

Khouloud Ayuti and Ariella Rosen, co-CEOs of PresenTense, said that "In these times of growing uncertainty and increasing social gaps between diverse communities in Israel, we are proud to launch MoveUp together with our partners to provide immediate support for Arab entrepreneurs, promoting them to take part in the 'startup nation.'"

British Ambassador to Israel Neil Wigan said, "Promoting values of diversity and inclusion is of great importance for the UK, and we are happy for the opportunity to assist and contribute to the promotion of these values in the Israeli tech ecosystem.

"I believe in the power of technology and entrepreneurship as a catalyst for a diverse and inclusive society and as a tool to address social gaps, and I welcome the collaboration between Embassy and PresenTense on this mission. We look forward to continuing to work together for a diverse future in the Israeli tech sector," Wigan said.

Citi Foundation Israel CCO Neil Corney said,"The unique partnership between Citi and PresenTense concerning shared social values and perceptions leads to fruitful results."

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According to Sonovia, the SonoMask mask maintains its protective properties through more than 55 industrial wash cycles, eliminating the need to frequently replace masks or filters and making it a far more environmentally-friendly PPE solution than traditional disposable gear.

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The patented technology from Sonovia is based on a process called cavitation, which involves using specialized machinery to emit sound waves that infuse proprietary chemical formulations into the woven fibers of textiles.

Sonovia is in the process of integrating its anti-bacterial fabric in the sports clothing manufactured by Israeli clothier Delta, three Israeli hospitals are evaluating the company's fabrics for their bedding and uniforms.

CEO Joshua Hershcovici called the latest test results "outstanding" and said they were the result of several months of work.

"We can now assure the public that the SonoMask works continuously and rapidly to neutralize the spread of COVID-19," Hershcovici said.

Sonovia CTO Liat Goldhammer said the startup envisioned its technology "transforming everyday life, implemented in all the textiles that surround us, from the clothes we wear to the textiles in our home, and of course as a protective measure in workplaces and medical institutions."

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