Extract from Automotive News Europe
Last year VW made a USD $60m strategic investment in the Israeli ride-hailing provider Gett, and Ford bought computer vision and machine-learning company SAIPS. BMW invested in the Israeli transit app Moovit in 2015.
More recently, Porsche announced this past June they have invested at least $10m in the Israeli venture capital funds Magma Venture and Grove Ventures, both of which focus on artificial intelligence for the automotive field. Porsche also have established an innovation office in Israel, “to guarantee access to technology trends and talent,” they say. Daimler and GM also have R&D centres in Israel.
Koby Simana, CEO of Israeli industry monitor IVC Research, said if a company haven’t already established operations in Israel, they ought to be worried because “Your competitors are already here”.
Porsche CFO and IT chief Lutz Meschke (photo) calls Israel “a key market for IT experts and engineers. It has more startups per capita than any other country in the world.”
Israel’s automotive technology sector has about 400 startups, Simana says. Most of those companies are focused on providing solutions for autonomous and connected cars, as well as securing the data coming from and going to connected vehicles.
The success of Mobileye has been crucial to the boom. “They showed everyone that an Israeli company could compete on the global level,” Simana said, adding that in the past the country was mostly known for providing the R&D grunt work that resulted in breakthrough products for American and European companies. Simana believes that R&D will continue to be the driving force behind Israel’s rising profile in the automotive sector, which is what the country’s leaders want.
