February Edition 2023

9 ecosystems.” Craig of DLA adds: “The IIA has an International Collaboration division “responsible for coordinating international collaboration in innovative R&D knowledge and technology between Israel companies and counterpart organizations abroad, thus offering various competitive advantages for the Israeli industry in a global market.” As Gornitzky’s Rom confirms, the country’s advantages include “strong academic research institutions such as the Weizmann Institute, the Volcanic Institute and the Faculty of Agriculture, a tradition of innovation resulting in many start-ups in the field, extensive agronomic knowledge that complements and is essential to the start-ups' activities, and complementary knowledge in computer science and AI that also plays a factor in the success of the AgTech and Foodtech fields.” Furthermore, you have the Technion Israel Institute of Technology, which recently announced it is establishing an R&D center for substitute proteins with USD 20 million in investments over five years, while there is also sector support from Ramot Tel Aviv University and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, among others. The Israeli Government already declared a national program for the promotion of the Foodtech in the Galilee, with TelHai College, the flagship college of the region to play a significant role in the advancement of this initiative. “Amongst VC's and investors in the industry are Bioworks, Millenium footech, Entrée, Kubota, FIMI opportunity, Vertex Ventures and many more,” adds Ronit Amir-Yaniv, partner at Arnon, Tadmor-Levy. “Some of the companies that are currently active and which I personally accompany include Botanohealth, Bioled and Eroll. These companies originated in Israel though some have already infiltrated the global market. Active funds also include Seetree and Nobactra.” World of Academia plays key part Many investors in the field, from multiple VCs to multinational strategics

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