UAE and Israel tech firms lay building blocks for business
dubai — A high-level delegation of Israeli technology leaders is in the UAE for the first time as they aim to foster business relations, and the person spearheading them is keen to ensure that the partnerships that would result from this endeavour will be for the greater good.
“Entrepreneurs will be creating the bridges, with the large things that Dubai, Abu Dhabi and the UAE in general want to achieve,” Dr Erel Margalit said.
“And we would like to help with… what is pretty much in line with what we do best.”
Dr Margalit — the founder of the Jerusalem Venture Partners (JVP) Fund and chairman of Margalit Startup City, was speaking to Khaleej Times during his visit to the UAE this week in which he spearheaded a delegation of several CEOs keen to lay the foundations for business between the two nations.
Their first stop was Dubai, where they had meetings with several businesses and entrepreneurs on Tuesday. On Wednesday, Dr Margalit met Mariam bint Mohammed Saeed Hareb Almheiri, UAE Minister of State for Food and Water Security.
While admitting they “don’t know enough” of the UAE business scene, their packed schedule saw Dr Margalit and Co get their first up-close-and-personal glimpse of it, coming away impressed and calling it “successful”.
“Interesting, understands technology,” he said of the companies they’d met. “We’re interested in investing and meeting entrepreneurs not only for receiving investments and selling; we want to meet interesting people, interesting entrepreneurs.” Some of the early deals tackled involved cyberse
curity for banks, financial institutions and other companies that need protection; artificial intelligence for a variety of industries, smart agriculture and food security, among several others.
Israel had also recently normalised ties with Bahrain; Dr Margalit says the delegation would be flying there “soon” as there has also been “big interest to build an innovation hub” in the kingdom.
Significant impact
Dr Margalit says a number of the UAE investors they met joined them for some investments in startups.Asked which sectors would benefit in the short term, Dr Margalit rattled off financial tech, insurance tech, smart agri
culture and healthcare IT, among others, as those that they would be interested in, all of which have farreaching benefits and blends well with their philosophy.
“What I like about some of the leading businesses [in the UAE] is that they’re not only interested in doing business, but they’re also doing something that is significant that has an impact, which is what we like; this is how we work,” he stressed.
Dr Margalit cited the JVP International Cyber Center in New York City as a prime example of their intentions: It benefits both sides of the fence as it is a big social entrepreneurial project as well as a business entrepreneurial project.
Entrepreneurs will be creating the bridges, with the large things that Dubai, Abu Dhabi and the UAE in general want to achieve
Dr Erel Margalit Founder of Jerusalem Venture Partners