Nucleai's software uses computer vision and machine learning algorithms to … During his time in the intelligence corps, he worked in a defense …

As 2020 finally winds down and potential vaccines promise emergence from COVID reality, Israel's startup ecosystem showcases its MedTech prowess, AI dominance, and data magic in this week's recap of the Israel tech sphere. Investments keep on coming, VCs keep on funding, multinational organizations recognize the innovative potential in Israeli startups, and a recap of the ecosystem's fundraising efforts for the month of November. Aquarius Engines develops a smart miniature sustainable combustion engine that can help scale the big machines down to size. Aquarius recently announced a $10 million funding round, led by TPR, a Japanese automotive parts manufacturer. To date, the Israeli startup has raised $37 million from Paz Oil, Marius Nacht, Honda Group's Musashi Seimitsu, and others.

What do cucumbers, avocados and coffee all have in common? Aside from being absolute necessities (yes, avocados too), they're all crops pollinated by bees. And if things keep heading in the direction they're at, we're screwed. Considered by many to be annoying little pests buzzing precariously near our ears, bees are extremely important. About one third of all plants and plant products consumed by humans are dependent on bee pollination.

Top 10 Tech Trends for 2020, and Beyond

The British Embassy in Israel launched it's flagship technology program - TeXchange 2020 - which this year will focus on healthcare innovation. The Embassy is inviting Israeli startups to apply for a program that one of its alumni has described as "a lifetime membership to the UK government and key players." TeXchange is the annual flagship program of the UK Israel Tech Hub, and has been running successfully since 2012. Every year, the Hub focuses on a different sector. "The program creates an ongoing two-way flow of digital tech pioneers, companies, ideas and technology between the UK and Israel," the TeXchange team explained, "and it creates platforms for collaboration between entrepreneurs and companies, connecting Israeli startups to the UK's leading companies, markets, investors and service providers while giving British corporations a competitive advantage by integrating Israeli technological innovation into their business."

In the coming year, artificial intelligence will make its way from centralized servers to our handheld devices and home gadgets, and will become a dominant force in all areas in which huge amounts of data are used, Israeli experts say. AI, once a matter of data and algorithms fed to machines to make them think like a human, is used today for a wide range of applications, from facial recognition to detection of diseases in medical images to global competitions in games such as chess and Go. Get The Start-Up Israel's Daily Start-Up by email and never miss our top stories Free Sign Up And as the use of AI and machine learning grows, attention turns to making it cheaper, faster, more ubiquitous and available. "Deep learning will enter all fields," said Eyal Miller, the managing director and CEO of Samsung NEXT Tel Aviv, a local investment arm of the Korean giant Samsung Electronics that opened in Israel in 2016 and has invested in 10 Israeli startups, half of them in the field of AI. "AI was already relevant in last few years of development in subcategories, such as natural language processing (NLP), computer vision (CV), and later in cognition, autonomous-ness and assistance-like interfaces. This trend will intensify and AI will be even more important and dominant across more, if not all, fields in 2018."

As the Internet of Things (IoT) revolution gathers pace, we will soon be living in a world where virtually everything is connected to the internet and the cloud – cars, homes, televisions, coffee machines, and even our showers. "Even babies are controlled by the Internet," Israeli cyber-security guru Gil Shwed said recently at Israel's CyberTech conference, referring to a WiFi-enabled crib he had bought. The increase in wireless connections among objects and people is phenomenal. Research firm Gartner estimates that the number of connected devices and objects will grow from 6.4 billion in 2016 to nearly 21 billion by 2020 – and that excludes smartphones, tablets and computers. The numbers are undoubtedly staggering, and Israeli companies are significantly contributing to these statistics. According to venture capital firm Innovation Endeavors, there are roughly 330 Israeli IoT companies in a myriad of markets, such as AgTech, healthcare, transportation, smart homes, and consumer products ranging from sportswear to pet care.

Artificial intelligence (AI) gives machines the ability to "think" and accomplish tasks. AI already is a big part of our lives in areas such as banking, shopping, security and healthcare. Soon it will help us get around in automated vehicles. By 2025, the global enterprise AI market is predicted to be worth more than $30 billion. Israeli industry can expect a nice piece of that pie due to its world-class capabilities in AI and its subsets: big-data analysis, natural-language processing, computer vision, machine learning and deep learning.

The startups are separated into eight categories: Technologies, Sectors, Industrial, Automotive, Enterprise, Healthcare, Fintech, and Marketing, and the technology is being used for a myriad of purposes. In the following post, I'll dive deeper into analytics on Israel's AI startup ecosystem. For now, here's a top 10 summary of my findings: For the 2017 year-to-date, Israeli AI startups have raised $837 million, which is already larger than the total period for 2016, and represents a fifteen-fold increase in the last five years. Based on the available data, Israeli AI startups are exiting at an average multiple of 8.2 times their total funding, ranging from a low of 2.0 to a high of 20.0 times.

For the 2017 year-to-date, Israeli AI startups have raised $837 million, which is already larger than the total period for 2016, and represents a fifteen-fold increase in the last five years.