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Great article by the Financial Times describing the shift in the Israeli tech ecosystem, where the "build to exit" strategy is slowly being replaced by entrepreneurs that are thinking big, global and dreaming of reaching "unicorn" status. The growing number of companies reaching over $1b valuation is a sign that the "startup nation" has matured, and it's not just about great tech talent. Big global companies can succeed out of the small Country. Exciting to see companies like Outbrain mentioned, a Rhodium portfolio company I've had the privilege of working with.
With a small domestic market of just 8m people, entrepreneurs in Israel have a tendency to sell early. A common question posed at conferences was when Israel — nicknamed Start-Up Nation in an eponymous 2009 book — might become “scale-up nation”. Israelis asked when their country, which has no household-name multinationals other than generic drugs group Teva, would get its own corporate national champions like Finland’s Nokia or Germany’s Siemens. But as its technology sector matures, the Jewish state is seeing more companies expand to employ hundreds of people locally, achieving valuations of $1bn or more and gaining the status of “unicorns”.
