Zeekit's Yael Vizel: In Israel, we create magic from almost nothing

• Author: JERUSALEM POST STAFF
• Published date: 13 October 2021
• Publication title: Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel)

"Here in Israel, we can create magic, many times from almost nothing."

Vizel was speaking on Tuesday on the stage at The Jerusalem Post Annual Conference. In a panel titled, "Start-Up Nation Diplomacy: How Innovation Breeds Connection," she explained how her company - a virtual dressing room that was recently bought by Walmart – "internally call us a Commando Unit."

"We're excited to bring the giant from Arkansas to the Holy Land," Vizel said. "That's the Start Up Nation, with ideas, energy, teamwork, and also a spirit that failure is not an option, and you keep pushing forward. We achieve goals in ways that in other countries or cultures may be a little bit more limited. I think there's a miracle here."

The coronavirus pandemic proved that. While in most countries, including in parts of Israel, companies closed and economies failed, Israel edged closer to having 100 unicorns, defined by israel21C as private companies valued at over $1 billion.

Israelis have always been known to tackle crises head on.

"What we've seen throughout the years is that Israeli companies in general are fairly good at identifying a specific problem and creating a specific solution – unlike more global companies that try to solve something more generic like building a platform or a marketplace or something like that," said Bright Data CEO Or Lenchner, whose company is considered the No. 1 web data collection company in the world.

Lenchner, who also sat on the panel, said that in Israel the scene is maturing, and companies are growing faster than ever.

"After we invested a lot of effort in making sure we have the best tools available but only to do that specific thing, we saw it actually does a lot in connecting … Israel to the world," Lenchner said.

Recently, his company forged an agreement to consult with the United Kingdom government on its new National Data Strategy or NDS to improve data use in government.

"When they looked for the exact skillset that they had to have in order to build something relevant for the country, they couldn't really find what they were after inside the UK, so they came to us and a few other local companies," Lenchner said. "We found ourselves officially advising the secretary. This is thanks to our completely unique, specialized set of expertise that we developed. We see this happens a lot, especially with Israeli companies, which help for sure in connecting Israel and Israeli companies to the world."

Facebook Israel's general manager, Adi Soffer...