Despite crisis, Israel investments flowing

Israeli firms assured the Philippines it will continue to pursue investments in the local technology and agriculture industries despite its persisting war against Hamas.

Alex Shmulovich, head of Viola Ventures, on Tuesday said Israeli firms continue to develop products and services to share with other countries while the Israeli government and global organizations strive to restore peace between Israelis and Palestinians in the contested territory of Gaza.

"Most of the research facilities in Israel continue their operations and their management has provided a lot of support to employees. Israel has been known for leveraging crises and we believe we'll see similar strong performance," he said during the webinar on Israel's economic resilience on Tuesday.

Data from Viola Ventures, a startups investor group, show capital funding for Israeli businesses grew despite military operations over Gaza in 2014. Jefferies, an investment banker, affirmed this as its data revealed total capital for Israeli businesses rose from $1.26 billion in 2014 to $2.22 billion in the next year.

As of 11 November, capital funding for Israeli businesses decreased to about one-third of the level in the first quarter of this year. In general, however, capital funding to Israeli firms has been rebounding since 2014, with a few instances of decline by 25 percent or less.

Shmulovich said less than 20 percent of Viola Ventures' partners recently postponed capital raising activities.

Cybersecurity projects grow

Data from Viola Ventures also show the cybersecurity industry has received the highest funding since the Israel-Hamas war began on 7 October at $940 million. It was followed by technology-centric insurance, biotechnology and digital health.

Yochai Corem, chief executive officer of Cyberint, said his cybersecurity firm will continue to transfer knowledge and capabilities to the Philippines while expanding its Filipino workforce.

 "We opened our system for free for small, medium and large companies. We take those learnings on how these technologies work and deploy them back to our international customers including those in the Philippines," he explained.

"We have warm relations with the Philippines and we're planning to add more positions. We just opened two new positions for our team in the Philippines," Corem continued.

He said Cyberint has been offering online security services to many financial firms in the Philippines for a decade now.

"We combine the intelligence capabilities of Israel and the Philippines. Our team in the Philippines works for more hours a day to support our team in Israel," Corem said.

Viola Ventures see more investments in computer hardware development, which involves electronic parts from the Philippines.

"Many of the operations are based online, so companies must ensure to support communications and things can be delegated to other staff overseas. There will be dependence on computer hardware," Shmulovich said.

Electronics manufacturing employs the highest number of Filipinos at over 189,000, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority.

In terms of agriculture, Ami Lustig, co-founder and chief executive officer of LR Group, said his firm plans to boost technology-based farming or the so-called smart agriculture.