With around 220,000 residents and 30,000 students, Be'er Sheva is one of Israel's largest and fastest-growing cities. The city, located on the northern edge of the Negev Desert, is also considered the country's "cyber capital." Not only is it home to Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, one of the country's best universities (and a partner university of the Bundeswehr University Munich), but the Israeli Defense Forces also have a presence here with its C4i cyber unit and a corresponding computer science school. Israel's Cyber Emergency Response Team (CERT) is also headquartered in Be'er Sheva, as is the Cyber7 cyber innovation community, initiated by the Israel National Cyber Directorate. Numerous companies, such as IBM, Oracle, and Deutsche Telekom, also maintain offices in the city.
The startup ecosystem in Be'er Sheva thus has very similar conditions to that in Munich, only the focus is different. While engineering dominates in the Alpine foothills, much of the focus in the Negev revolves around cyber. In detail, however, some things work a little differently in Be'er Sheva than what one might be used to in the state capital.
Entrepreneurship at Ben-Gurion University
This is evident, among other things, in Yazamut 360°, the Entrepreneurship Center of Ben-Gurion University, established four years ago. The center is – rather unusually for a university institution – not only open to students and researchers, but also offers its services to all citizens of the city and the Southern District of Israel. However, Yazamut 360°'s primary goal is not to facilitate the creation of as many startups as possible. Instead, the center sees its mission as introducing students to entrepreneurship as a further component of their education.
Yazamut 360° consists of several units. Cactus Capital, for example, is a university-funded venture capital firm. What makes it unique is that the students make the investment decisions. Cactus Capital has developed a comprehensive curriculum that teaches students everything they need to know. They can also learn from senior students and interact with experts and executives. Cactus Capital has already invested in 67 founders and 27 startups.
With Oazis, Yazamut 360° also has an accelerator designed to help researchers turn their research findings into startups. In its two years of existence, Oazis has spawned 24 startups, 12 of which have completed financing rounds totaling $17 million. There has also been one initial exit among the Oazis startups. And with the Leaders Program, the Entrepreneurship Center at Ben-Gurion University supports students in gaining practical experience, building professional networks, and developing leadership skills.
The tech community Tech7
The tech community founded in 2015 Tech7 may also be familiar to some people here – after all, together with the SCE, it organizes the Bavaria Israel Partnership Accelerator BIPA. The fact that it is also based in Be'er Sheva is perhaps less well known in the Munich ecosystem. As a community, Tech7 is supported by various parties. Companies such as EMC, Wix, WeWork, and Cyberspark are behind it, as are academic institutions such as Ben-Gurion University and the Shamoon College of Engineering. Tech7 also maintains close ties with other technology communities such as the Google Developers Group (GDG) and Shecodes. However, the leadership of the tech community remains privately owned.
Tech7's offerings include – in addition to two accelerator programs for early- and seed-stage startups – networking between founders and industry, various entrepreneurship programs for young people, and the Gate7 program, which develops customized solutions for the challenges facing global companies. The Cyber7 cyber innovation community is also managed by Tech7. In addition, the Venture Studio plans to offer venture capital, office space, and coworking space in the future.
Technology for the desert outside Be'er Sheva
In addition to the numerous cyber activities, there are of course other industries in which founders in Be'er Sheva excel. Some of them are involved in the organization Desertech Desertech is one of six national innovation communities in Israel, focusing on the development, adaptation, and commercialization of technologies that enable sustainable living in arid climates. With the Negev Desert on its doorstep, Be'er Sheva is naturally the ideal location for this innovation community. The startups that are part of Desertech come from fields such as agriculture, energy and water supply, and infrastructure.
