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Israel Defies Expectations With Surge in Tech Funding
The Wall Street Journal|January 14, 2025
As the war against Hamas dragged into 2024, there were worries here that investment would dry up in Israel's globally important technology sector as much of the world turned against the casualties in Gaza and recoiled at the unstable security situation.
- CARRIE KELLER-LYNN
Israel Defies Expectations With Surge in Tech Funding

A survey, however, found investment in Israeli technology startups grew 28% last year to $10.6 billion. The influx buoyed Israel's economy and helped it maintain a war footing on several battlefronts.

The increase marks a turnaround for Israeli startups, which had experienced a decline in investments in 2023 to $8.3 billion, a drop blamed in part on an effort to overhaul the country's judicial system and the initial shock of the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attack.

Tech investment in Israel remains depressed from years past. It is still just a third of the nearly $30 billion in private investments raised in 2021, a peak after which Israel followed the U.S. into a funding market downturn.

Any increase in Israeli technology investment defied expectations though. The sector is responsible for 20% of Israel's gross domestic product and about 10% of employment.

It contributed directly to 2.2% of GDP growth in the first three quarters of the year, according to Startup Nation Central-without which Israel would have been on a negative growth trend, it said.

This story is from the January 14, 2025 edition of The Wall Street Journal.

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This story is from the January 14, 2025 edition of The Wall Street Journal.

Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.

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