KrASIA Weekly: Research and innovation are two core pillars of technology economy

2018-09-08

Hi there, it’s Robin.

It’s the time of the year again for the annual DLD Tel Aviv Digital Conference in Israel. It was the opportunity for me to meet with startup founders, visit co-working spaces and interact with the people familiar with Israel’s hi-tech industry. Hi-tech, in this case, refers to corporations whose core business is in technological development, according to the IVC Research Center.

After all, Israel today is widely known as the ‘Startup Nation’ in the Middle East.

Unlike the tech scenes in China and the US, Israel’s technology startups often seek to exit. They usually do not grow to become global powerhouses like the FAANG (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Google) in the U.S. or the BAT (Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent) in China.

Another reason lies in the Israeli tech ecosystem. While there are venture capitals looking to invest in early-stage ventures, the private equity scene in Israel is not as happening, according to people familiar with the matter.

Talking about startup exits, Israel saw a total of 112 startup exits over the past year and its total monetary valuation was at a whopping US$23 billion. And the main driver of the valuation was due to the notable sale of Mobileye to Intel. With all the rage over future mobility solutions, Intel paid US$15 billion to get their hands on the Israeli technology for autonomous vehicles.

While I was away, there were also many things going on in the tech world both in China and Southeast Asia.

Meituan is now starting its global public offering amidst its burgeoning losses and its fellow competitor Didi isn’t doing that well either. The latter actually made a net loss of $584 million for H1 2018.

Thanks to the likes of Didi, Go-Jek, and Grab, Asia now owns more than 70% of the world’s ride-hailing market share. And this could be worrying for Uber, who have exited from two major Asian markets, China and Southeast over the past few years, ceding operations to local companies.

WeWork’s acquisition of Naked Hub, on the other hand, seemed to have worked out well in its foray into China for now at least. If this trend were to kick off, we might see more US tech mammoths entering the elusive Chinese market.

Read on to find out more interesting stories from this week, and feel free to tip us if you have news clue or you just want to talk with us, email us at hello@kr-asia.com and we are looking forward to hearing from you.

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