Some may wonder where some of the world’s startups begin. Perhaps not as well known as Silicon Valley, Israel is home to one of the world’s best enterprises with an astonishing figure of 4,800 active startups as of June 2013.
Israel is said to be the next in line as it rewrites the future of cyber security. Today, for the very first time in Singapore, a rare opportunity has arisen for startups to reach the Far East market and establish themselves in this exciting ecosystem. However, only 10 Israeli Startups has been selected to pitch their idea to Singapore’s top investor community. Microsoft Singapore is proud to be the venue sponsor for this event where the BizSpark Team had the opportunity to network with the Israeli startups and listen to their pitches.
Below are some promising Israeli tech startups that took part in the IX World Tour 2013:
1. NOK NOK #1 App on Israel app store
Just when you thought that the telecom services could not get any better, Noknok mobile application was launched. This application allows users to receive free incoming calls on their original local number from all mobiles and landlines.
Noknok combines technology such as SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) to transform the way people reach out to one another. The reason for its position in the app store is of the fact that they eliminate expensive roaming charges for the users.
2. Folloyu, featured by Global Entrepreneurship Week 2012
Maintaining online activities has just been made easier with Folloyu. Folloyu aims to empower web visitors where all uncompleted purchases and web activities can be continued, cross-device with a single click of a button. This application makes use of cloud technology in order to synchronize a URL across devices, allowing the user to seamlessly transition their online activities with any interruptions.
3. Fashioholic raised $1 million in seed funding
Fashioholic is a leader in Serious Games, designed to provide added value other than mere entertainment. The games are also meant as a marketing channel for fashion brands, helping designers to collect user’s preference data to deliver targeted merchandise. Their application, Fashion Eye, has shown outstanding engagement retention statistics with over half a million items displayed to consumers.
We were given the honor of working with Esther Loewy (founding partner of Boot vamp venture, pictured below) to prepare the night for the Israeli Startups. Fine wine, tidbits and snacks were brought to be shared among the startups and investors that day.
It was a night filled with lots of invaluable knowledge, which helped broaden my horizons greatly. With that, I truly hope that Singapore would have more of such events which could also be open to the general public. It would definitely be an eye-opener for all and Singapore’s entrepreneurs could take a leaf out of these great entrepreneurs’ books. I also hope to see more of our aspiring local startups in future.
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