New food tech hub in north to advance Israeli innovations, says leading investor

Israel entrepreneur and investor Erel Margalit, founder and executive chairman of Jerusalem Venture Partners (JVP), inaugurated a new innovation center in the northern Israeli town of Kiryat Shmona on Thursday, focused on advancing Israeli food technologies.

The inauguration event for the center, dubbed Margalit Startup City Galil, drew a number of senior Israeli officials, diplomats, business leaders, members of Israel’s high-tech ecosystem and investor groups, as well as representatives from multinational organizations, including Cisco, Deloitte, and Luzzatto Group, which will serve as strategic partners, according to the announcement.

Academic and research institutes like the Tel Hai Academic College and the Migal Research Institute, the Israeli Science and Technology Ministry’s regional RD center in the Galilee region, will also be active in the new food tech center, as will dozens of food- and agriculture-related technology companies, and local authorities and community organizations.

Margalit, a former MK with the Labor party, said that the center positions Israel as an international hub for food tech and will create thousands of jobs in the area over the next few years.

“Food tech is the next cyber[security], and I believe Israel is on its way to becoming a superpower in the field,” Margalit said in his address on Thursday.

“We are creating an economic growth engine which will change the lives of young people and families, with 30,000 high-paying technology jobs like in the center of the country, and another 70,000 ancillary positions. And all this is happening together with the area’s schools, as part of the process of building an incredible and ground-breaking ecosystem, because the pupils of today are the entrepreneurs of tomorrow.”

The Margalit Startup City Galil will seek to address some of the world’s most pressing problems, including global warming, threats to food supplies, drought, and a shortage of healthy foods, according to the announcement.

Fourteen Israeli companies presented their technologies at the event, including InnovoPro, a developer of food products based on chickpea protein in various categories such as dairy and meat alternatives; Hargol Foodtech, an Israeli startup that developed a farm system for sustainable grasshopper protein production; Green Eye, which leverages artificial intelligence and deep learning technology for better pest control; and Blue Tree, a developer of sugar-reducing technology.

Margalit Startup City Galil is Margalit’s fourth innovation center, following a high-tech center in Jerusalem, cybersecurity tech centers in Beersheba and New York, and a digital health center in Haifa. JVP is also in talks to open innovation centers in Paris and Dubai.

The model is based on connecting tech and business entrepreneurship with social and cultural entrepreneurship and drawing cooperation between the various players in a particular region.

Set up in 1993, JVP has raised to date $1.5 billion across nine funds and has invested in over 150 startups, of which 12 have had initial public offerings on the Nasdaq.