The Israel Conference in Los Angeles to Spark Deal Flow Between Israel and California

Over $20B of Investment Capital will be Represented

Early Stage through Publicly Traded Companies invite Entrepreneurs and Investors

Thursday May 14, 2009, 8:00 am EDT

The Israel Conference 2009

LOS ANGELES --(BUSINESS WIRE)-- The Israel Conference™ spotlights clean tech, medical tech, high tech, entertainment media tech, and consumer products companies that are industry innovators and market-makers to an audience of investors, senior executives, and entrepreneurs to increase business and investment between Israel and California on Thursday, June 4, 2009 at the Luxe Hotel in Los Angeles beginning at 8am www.TheIsraelConference.org

"Many Los Angeles and California business leaders and entrepreneurs will have their first opportunity to see first what Israeli companies, technologists and investors can bring to their enterprises," noted Sharona Justman, conference co-chair and managing director of STEP Strategy Advisors, an acquisitions advisory and strategic planning firm. "There are tremendous synergies in the technology communities in Israel and California and we expect this conference to ignite deals."

The Israel Conference™ provides the unique opportunity to meet and reach over 50 top VCs and CEOs from Israel-facing firms and hundreds more that are coming to participate in the program and to network. Over $20B of investment money will be represented by the speakers throughout the day. Session topics will cover high tech, clean tech, medical devices, powerful consumer brands, and entertainment media technology.

Opening speaker, Glenn Yago, Director of Capital Studies at the Milken Institute notes that "Increasingly, Israel is moving from being known as a research and development foundry to a focus center for innovation and applications development. Intellectual property in communications applications, entertainment, and clean tech is revolutionizing traditional industries. With over 8,000 patents from a population of just 7 million people, Israel is a hotbed of invention and innovation."

Israel market facts:

• Within the past 15 years, major companies have risen that were developed in Israel and have their corporate office in California with job creation in the hundreds of thousands, world-wide. A number of these are Fortune 500 companies today with corporate offices in California such as Check Point, SanDisk, and Amdocs.
• Israeli corporations do business in the world-market and hold the number one position on the NASDAQ second only to US corporations.
• Israel has the largest number of scientists in the world per capita at 145/10,000 compared to the US with 85/10,000.
• In 2008, over $2B in capital was invested over 480 Israeli high-tech companies, an increase of 18% over prior year with 50% coming from funds outside of Israel, mostly from the US.
• Over the past 3 years, Israeli firms raised $2.3Billion in IPOs on exchanges around the world while over $18B was spent on acquisitions of Israeli High Tech companies.
• The Centrino microchip, the PillCam, and Instant Messaging were created in Israel and the innovators will be speaking at The Israel Conference.

The Israel Conference™ brings together founders and executives of significant Israel-facing businesses, from early stage through publicly traded, that were founded in Israel, have R&D operations in Israel, do business in Israel, or invest in Israeli companies. Keynote speakers represent the spirit of inventiveness of the Israel market and include Yossi Vardi who is well known for Instant Messaging, Eric Benhamou of 3com Corporation and Palm, as well as Erel Margalit, founder of Jerusalem Venture Partners, one of the largest venture capital firms in Israel who will speak on media and entertainment technology. Panels include executives from Sequoia Capital, Shamrock Holdings, Pitango Venture Capital which is one of Israel’s leading venture capital firms, Canaan Partners, Intel, SAP Labs, and the former Chief Scientist of Israel with Israel Gemini Funds.

The Clean Tech panel features a discussion on cutting-edge technology with Tigo Energy for solar energy, a discussion on water management with the Chief of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and Kinrot Ventures that manages a clean tech incubator as well as The Westley Group, a California based fund headed by Steve Westley that actively invests in Israel, and TamarixVentures, one of Israel’s top VCs for clean tech.

The Medical Tech panel provides an overview of the rapidly expanding Medical Device and Life Sciences market in Israel with discussion by DraperFisherJurvetson-Tamir Fishman and Pontifax, a VC fund headed by Eli Hurvitz, the Chairman of TEVA Pharmaceuticals. A special presentation by Given Imaging on the innovation of the first ingestible videocamera, the PillCam, will be featured.

Israel-facing companies are invited to participate in the Pavilion of Companies, an all-day area for remarkable technology and consumer products companies where companies will be able to showcase their unique qualities and meet directly with the speakers, participants, investors, and business development executives with whom they can network and drive new business opportunities.

"The speed by which the Israeli innovator brings a new product and service to the market is remarkable," noted Justman, "look for the R&D office of companies of note and you will find an address in Israel by which you know that unique creativity blooms inside the company – that's the "Israel inside" imprint, a high mark to look for when evaluating a company."

"Innovation through improvisation is the strategic advantage that Israel has developed. In the past few years, major corporations such as Google, Intel, Cisco, Oracle, and Microsoft have increased their offices in Israel in order to get direct access to quality innovative technology skills that can develop the next generation of solutions. The economic benefits are tremendous and the government of Israel supports these investments through beneficial tax incentives and direct investment maintaining a strong bond for working closely with American corporations," noted Yago, who opened the Milken Institute’s finance research center in Israel last year.

The Israel Conference sponsors include Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Morrison & Foerster, Silicon Valley Bank, Mitchell Silverberg & Knupp, New Century Capital Partners, Zag.com, Bank Leumi, TheMarker, Business Wire, Israel Venture Capital Research Center, Southern California Israel Chamber of Commerce, Olmstead Williams Communications, Daly-Swartz Public Relations, and iHollywoodForum.

The Organizing Team includes Sharona Justman of STEP Strategy Advisors, Glenn Yago of Milken Institute, Isabel Maxwell of Israel Venture Network, Eran Wagner of cVidya Networks, David Ben-Ami of MacroCure, Chris Rice of Check Point, Dan Yukelson of Premiere Radio Networks, and Yair Landau of Mass Animation.

For further information, contact The Israel Conference™ at 310.445.5388 or email Paula@TheIsraelConference.org or visit www.TheIsraelConference.org.

###
Contact:
Daly-Swartz PR for The Israel Conference
Jeffrey Swartz, 949-470-0075
jeffreyswartz@dsprel.com