Investors in New York and Boston participated in two meeting of the Israel Cleantech Investor Conference last week for Israeli water and alternative energy technology start-ups and venture capital funds. The Israel Export and International Cooperation Institute and the Israeli economic attaché in New York organized the conferences. Participants said that the conferences were great successes, belying earlier worries that the global financial crisis would keep away potential investors.
Israel Minister for Economic Affairs in New York Yair Shiran told "Globes" that despite the financial market crisis, US investors have funds available for investment in fields considered promising in the medium and long term.
The new Obama US administration is expected to renew the push for, and invest in, energy and water projects out of economic, environmental, and political motives. High on the agenda is an effort to reduce the US's dependence on hostile and unstable regimes that control a large portion of the world's oil reserves.
Miya president and CEO Baruch Oren told "Globes", "The economic chill will not end global warming. If there is one message I should bring from there, that is it. The Americans understand this."
16 Israeli cleantech companies and venture capital funds attended the conferences. The funds were: AquAgro Fund LP and its parent Gaon Agro Industries Ltd. (TASE: GAT), BDB Technologies & Hi-Tech Investments Ltd., MIYA, Precede Technologies Ltd., and Whitewater Technology Group.
The participating start-ups were: Aquapure Technologies Ltd., Aquatal Ltd., Cequesta Water Ltd., CheckLight Ltd., Coriolis Wind Ltd., CQM Technologies Ltd., En Gibton Ltd., Engineuity Ltd., EPC Wastewater Solution Ltd., Leviathan Energy Ltd., and RealiteQ Ltd.
150 US banks, private equity funds, venture capital funds, and other investors attended the conference in New York, and 250 attended the conference in Boston. Leading technology companies, such as General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE) also participated to examine new technologies and possible joint ventures.
Oren said, "I felt proud as an Israeli. You see hundreds of people coming to hear about your technologies because they treat Israel as the Silicon Valley of the Middle East."
Oren added that the economic difficulties currently facing many countries are an opportunity, not an obstacle, for companies offering advanced technologies aimed at solving global problems. "One of the results of the financial crisis will be a significant rise in unemployment in many countries, probably including in the US. One of the usual solutions for dealing with unemployment is government spending on infrastructures. This creates opportunities for cleantech, and the proof is the great interest shown by investors in Israeli technologies."
Oren said that growing environmental awareness and the need to slow or prevent the drying up of water reservoirs has created a large market for Israeli water management technologies, with a strong emphasis on the water-energy interface, where Israel is a leader. California uses 18% of its energy consumption for water production, and advanced water-energy interface projects are a big promise for the cleantech industry.
Oren concluded, "I know that my colleagues are pleased. We all paid from our own pockets to come to the US, and it was a worthwhile investment. We're returning with a great many connections and beginnings."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on November 5, 2008
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