The Startup Nation

How Israel came to have one of the highest numbers of startups per person, why global tech giants run research centres there, and famous exits like Waze and Mobileye.

Israel is called the “Startup Nation”, after a 2009 book.

Scale

Israel has one of the world’s highest numbers of startups per person.

Exits

Mobileye, a self-driving tech firm, bought by Intel in 2017 for about $15 billion.
Waze, a navigation app, bought by Google in 2013.
Wiz, a cloud security firm, agreed to be bought by Google for about $32 billion in 2025.

R&D centres

Intel, Microsoft, Google and Apple run big research centres in Israel.

R&D spending

Israel spends one of the highest shares of GDP on R&D in the world.

Culture

Tolerance of failure and informal hierarchy encourage risk-taking.

The navigation app

Waze started in Israel and was sold to Google, which kept its team in Tel Aviv.

Thinking startups need Silicon Valley

Israel built a large ecosystem.

Key takeaways

Israel has many startups per person.
Mobileye, Waze and Wiz are big exits.
Global firms run R&D centres there.
R&D spending is very high.