Emirati investors strike deals with Israeli high-tech companies
Opponents and human rights activists in the UAE express concerns about the regime’s escalating technological repression in the country thanks to Israel’s security cooperation.
They highlight that the Emirati regime has relied for years on Israeli-made espionage, surveillance technologies, and devices to suppress public freedoms and prosecute opponents. They expect an increase after the shameful agreement of normalization between Abu Dhabi and Israel.
The Israeli website “Wella” revealed Emirati investors’ desire to the Israeli “high-tech” sector as one of the Emirati-Israeli normalization agreement outcomes.
Israeli analyst Micky Levy expected that this cooperation in high-tech, trade, and flights to attend international conferences between the two countries within three hours would result in “an increase in Israeli investments by 10 percent from the Emirates.”
“A few hours after announcing the normalization of relations with the UAE, the LinkedIn account of GO Digital from the Israeli” Hachshara Insurance Company “began receiving dozens of requests for cooperation. After that, 70 inquiries from businessmen from the UAE were counted, he said.
Sami Berkowitz, head of the company’s information systems department, said, “Most of the inquiries from the UAE have come from investors, consultants, and executives in insurance companies, and individuals in the financial technology field, technology insurance, etc., and, surprisingly, these senior management levels and above are interested. With cooperation and investments, one of them arrived from the large brokerage firm in Abu Dhabi. ”
He explained that “the UAE ranks 11th in terms of per capita gross domestic product and is considered one of the richest countries in the world, and besides large capital, there is a great thirst for investment in advanced technology companies and innovative developments. So far, Israeli companies have benefited from future foreign investment in a way.” Essential from Europe and the United States, but the new agreement with the UAE is expected to change the picture. ”
He revealed that “Just two days after Trump’s statement about the Emirati-Israeli agreement, the Emirati state investment company APEX signed a strategic agreement with the Israeli biotechnology company Tera to develop a device to detect the Coronavirus, and Dubai holds hundreds of technical conferences every year in broad areas such as cloud infrastructure.” And financial technology and engineering, and now the Israelis and Israeli companies will be able to participate in it. ”
He pointed out that “Israeli information indicates that the business potential in digital insurance in the UAE is particularly large, and it is still in the development stages. It is interested in entering this field and learning the technological tools that Israeli companies know how to produce.”
Omri Vyshnitsky, Vice President of Business Development and Marketing at the NANO Casual Jobs application, said that “we did not imagine the demand for temporary jobs between us and the Emirates for these dimensions. The operations that we expected to happen within a year took place in a few weeks, and as soon as we heard about the agreement with the UAE, we started.” By studying the field, examining the investor sector there, and we discovered that there is a huge interest in technologies in the world of work, “HR TECH.”
He added, “We have already received a number of inquiries from funds and private investors from Dubai, and we are considering establishing a” road show “for sales meetings with investors across the UAE soon.
Yivat Oron, CEO of Leumitech, explained that “85 percent of the investments in Israeli high-tech companies are foreign funds, and the volume of foreign investments in Israeli high-tech companies in 2019 amounted to about $ 9.5 billion, to which most foreign investments are joined by about $ 2.6 billion in venture capital funds,” What might encourage us is that the UAE has many years of experience in technology investments.”
