Hollywood superstar and serial investor Ashton Kutcher is not done with Israel yet. After visiting Israel last week and meeting with Israeli startups for potential investments, the actor is now looking for offices in the holy land. Ynet reports that Kutcher may be setting up an incubator for Israeli startups alongside his business partner Guy Oseary.
Online retail giant eBay is setting up an incubator in Israel. Calcalist reports that the incubator, to be built at the company’s Israeli headquarters in Netanya, will focus on startups dealing with online trade, social networks and big data.
Two southern cities in Israel, Ashdod and Beersheba, will soon have incubators that will supply jobs and develop the local high-tech industry. The incubator in Beersheba will be funded by JVP, BG Negev Technologies and Applications Ltd. and the The Office of the Chief Scientist, which also fund the Incubator in Ashdod with the Gitam BBDO ad agency and Adi Cohen, a former VP marketing at Cellcom Israel Ltd.
American state Virginia has launched a new incubator program for Israeli agritech companies, called Gateway USA: Agritech. Members of the Virginia Israel Advisory Board (VIAB) are currently interviewing Israeli companies in order to choose which ones will participate. The program will invest up to $10 million in the Israeli companies over the next two to three years.
Ben Gurion University‘s technology transfer company, in cooperation with leading Israeli VC Jerusalem Venture Partners (JVP), will create Israel’s first ever cyber-security incubator under the Israeli Office of the Chief Scientists’ incubator program in Beer Sheva. The initiative comes in the wake of rising cyber-threats and increasing attacks on critical infrastructure in Israel and around the world.
Chinese-owned company Hutchison Water has announced the acquisition of Kinrot Ventures, a technological incubator founded in 1993 in Israel, as part of the Israeli Incubator Program. Kinrot is a worldwide leading seed investor in water and Cleantech technologies. Hutchinson could invest NIS 100,000,000 (or about $25 Million) in the incubator and in its portfolio companies over the coming 8 years.
India’s International Centre for Entrepreneurship and Technology (iCreate) has signed a memorandum of understanding with Israel’s Technion for setting up an incubator aimed at startup companies from both countries. According to the Technion, rougly 40 percent of all Israeli startups are incubated by the University, located in the city of Haifa.
McCann Erikson has invested $4 million in Israeli incubator TheTime – a new media investments firm. It was founded by Nir Tarlovski and Ilan Shiloach, who is also the chairman of McCann Erikson Israel. The investment was made at a company value of $30 million, which will use the money for investments in its portfolio companies, following joint seed funding with the Office of the Chief Scientist.
Merck Serono, a division of German pharmaceutical giant Merck, is opening a drug development incubator in Yavne, Israel. The company will invest 10 million euros in the project, supporting the development of Israeli biotech companies. The project is led by Inter-Lab, the R&D center of Merck Serono in Israel, which has already selected a few projects from over 100 applications it received.