Introducing ToI’s Tech Israel

To borrow a phrase from the tech world, we are pivoting. Today, we’re launching a rebranding of The Times of Israel’s tech section — changing our former StartUp Israel moniker to Tech Israel.

The new Tech Israel name recognizes and reflects the transformation of Israel in recent years. Israel has shifted from the Startup Nation to a ScaleUp Nation, a country that not only draws large, prominent multinationals that set up operations here to tap into the exceptional local talent, but is now also home to industry leaders, top international venture capital funds, a growing number of billion-dollar companies, and more firms hitting capital markets and acquiring smaller operations than ever before.

When The Times of Israel launched in February 2012, the resonant “Startup Nation” description of stunningly innovative Israel — conceived by the authors of the 2009 book “Start-up Nation: The Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle” — was just under three years old and served as the inspiration for the title of our section.

Almost a decade later, Israel has matured into a leading global hub for entrepreneurship and innovation, and the tech industry is consistently setting new records for investments in outstanding technologies in fields like cybersecurity, cloud computing, fintech, enterprise data, and life sciences.

Israeli startups are now positioning themselves to take on prominent roles in growing sectors like food tech, driven in part by groundbreaking academic work and scientific research, and climate tech, a field that aims to address one of the biggest challenges facing humanity — global warming and our planet’s limited resources.

Israel’s tech sector has also come to play an outsized role in the overall economy, helping the country better navigate the COVID-19 crisis and becoming “the most significant source of export growth,” according to the Economy Ministry. (Ministry figures from 2020 show that tech exports accounted for just under 12% of all exports, or roughly $43.4 billion, last year. Figures for 2021 are expected to be much higher).

At the same time, the majority of the population remains out of sync with this booming tech sector, which still accounts for just some 10% of the nation’s workforce and contributes to a growing wealth gap. Israel’s tech capital, Tel Aviv, was recently crowned the most expensive city in the world, and the country faces no shortage of woes such as high economic concentration, a spiraling housing crisis, a transportation quagmire, and education inequality.

These are important stories to tell. The Times of Israel will continue shining a light on the good, the bizarre, the outrageous, the shady, the (literally) illegal, the paradigm-shifting advancements in Israeli high-tech — and all things in between.

Our new name also comes with a new look that helps us better display our stories about Israeli entrepreneurs and scientists, deeply innovative technologies, industry and business, and macroeconomics. We’ve included a Tech Israel news feed with headlines from business and financial dailies and news organizations for continuous updates.

So, welcome to our new Tech Israel section, an update for a sector in constant creative development.