How is it possible that a country of 9 million inhabitants, less than the city of São Paulo, with a territory smaller than the state of Alagoas, completely deserted and surrounded by enemy countries, can concentrate 10% of all unicorns in the world? Yes, this is the question that many ask themselves when studying the case of Israel.

The country started gaining visibility thanks to its successful and rapid scalability entrepreneurship, which turned it into a Scale-Up Nation. Some initiatives are international success cases, such as the smart self-driving car system development startup Mobileye, acquired in 2017 by Intel for $ 15 billion.

Below are a few promising businesses that have turned into unicorns – all based in Israel – according to a global ranking provided by consultancy CB Insights.

  1. Infinidat

Infinidat is a startup founded in 2011 that received prestige and financial incentives from major corporations such as Goldman Sachs, which transformed it into a unicorn in 2015. The company, which creates software and solutions for data storage, is currently valued at $ 1.6 billion.

  1. Iron Source

Another startup in the technology and software development area, Iron Source has a market value of $ 1.5 billion. The startup had already stabilized itself as a unicorn back in 2014, and it currently markets solutions for app and web developers, and cell phone manufacturers.

  1. Gett

Gett is a mobility company. Previously called Getaxi, the startup evolved and now offers on-demand services – category in which they call themselves -, making available connections between users and means of transport in more than 60 cities in the world. In 2018, Gett became a unicorn partly thanks to the help of the Volkswagen Group which, in May 2016, invested about $ 300 million. Today, the startup is worth $ 1.4 billion.

  1. OrCam Technologies

OrCam was born in Israel as a developer of consumer electronics. In February 2018, it reached the level of unicorn, i.e., it started having an estimated market value of $ 1 billion. Its main product is an electronic vision device developed for the visually impaired, which can read and vocalize texts and provide audio feedback on face and object recognition through an algorithm.