Israel Inviting Early-Stage Startups To Apply For Wartime Funding

An Israeli government program to help early-stage startups during the ongoing war with Hamas in Gaza has announced it will soon be accepting applications from companies. 

Israel Innovation Authority (IIA), the government branch dedicated to promoting the country’s high-tech sector, last November announced the scheme to help early-stage startups raise initial capital from private investors. 

Under the initiative, private investors both in Israel and abroad were invited to form groups known as angel investor clubs, in order to fund young Israeli startups. 

The IIA created a 9 million-shekel fund to support these angel investors, and it is this funding that companies will be eligible for. 

The funding is available in three categories: pre-seed companies, which are in the very earliest stage of funding; seed companies, which are still raising funds to develop their concept; and Series A companies, which are in the post-seed stage and beginning to sell shares to investors. 

Applications will be accepted from March 4, and applicants from each category will be invited to attend a separate webinar about the funding. 

The fund runs alongside the 400 million-shekel program set up last year to bolster the sector in wartime, after swathes of the industry’s workforce were called up to emergency military service and some foreign investors balked at the prospect of putting money into Israeli companies during the conflict.  

The sector is the largest contributor to Israel’s national GDP, and in 2022 accounted for 18 percent or 290 billion shekels ($78B) of it, according to the IIA.