FIBA Visits Israel: February 12-23 2017 Edition

Saru Seshadri, COO, and Rakefet Bachur, Executive Director of Marketing, visited Israel, joined by partner investor, David Henderson from February 12^th to the 23^rd. The trip focused on activities to expose Israel’s startup nation to the FIBA programs and to the local Tampa Bay business community in core areas of digital health, ed-tech, cyber security, ag-tech and defense/security. Signed-up three Israeli startups for FIBA’s first cohort. The companies are Safe-T, a cyber-security technology company, SkySapience, a leader in tethered drones, and StemRad, a company that develop shields for gamma radiation for first responders. Screened 32 more startups for upcoming cohorts starting in March and April. Many of these startups demonstrate significant potential and could be selected for the second cohort as part of FIBA’s accelerator program. FIBA was hosted by Barnea Law & Co., by WeWork Sarona, and by MerkSpace in Tel-Aviv. Met with 10 Israeli incubator and accelerator programs to establish deal flow and collaboration that will result in a flow of curated startups to FIBA. The programs focus on digital health, ed-tech, cyber security, ag-tech, retail as well as general purpose accelerators in Jerusalem, Tel-Aviv, Ashdod (sister city to Tampa), Haifa and Beer-Sheva. Attended the OurCrowd Investor Summit in Jerusalem and met with investors and VCs. Last month, John Medved, CEO of OurCrowd, hosted a breakfast function at FIBA’s headquarters in Tampa to discuss the future of Florida and Israel’s collaboration in the startup world. Met with Israeli Export Institute, Israeli Innovation Authority and Ministry of Defense. FIBA established a network of partners in Israel that will support FIBA’s activities with knowledge, connections and possible access to capital. Hosted and presented at an evening meetup event for international accelerators alongside IBM Alpha Zone, Mass Challenge, 500 StartUps, Berkley, TechStars and SLP held at Kodak Israel.  70 startups attended the event and learned about Florida and Tampa as a hot spot for entrepreneurship and the FIBA programs.

---