Israel and Colorado's Cyber and Water Nexus
Gili Elkin 🎗️
Founder & Managing Partner at ICI Fund (INNOVATION. COMMUNITY. INTELLIGENCE). Actively looking to invest in Israeli founders with transformative AI solutions that secure our future.
At the Israel – Colorado Water Nexus event hosted by the Denver Botanic Gardens in collaboration with the Israel – Colorado Innovation Fund this week, Colorado Governor, John Hickenlooper, spoke about the importance of importing Israeli technologies into Colorado and in particular in cyber and water: “In Colorado we are going full speed ahead with cyber security. Israel is probably the world leader in the relationship between the military, the government, higher education, research universities and businesses. And they have that so tightly connected that they create businesses and jobs in the field of cyber security in Israel probably faster than in any other field of study at any university in the US. It is breathtaking, and they have partnered with our National Security Center down in Colorado Springs.”
The Israel – Colorado Innovation Fund’s current investment focus is cyber solutions for critical infrastructures. The Fund with the help of DU MBA students of Prof. Kerry Plemmons, researches the cyber security needs of Colorado’s critical infrastructures and in a couple of days will travel to Israel to identify Israeli cyber solutions that meet these infrastructures’ needs. Once the fund selects a startup for investment, it will help the startup open an office in Colorado for sales and marketing and help the startup scale up in the US through Innosphere, the general partner in the Fund. Innosphere is a 20-year old technology accelerator helping startups meet their revenues targets and scale through its unique scale up program.
The governor mentioned his goal to turn Colorado into the innovation hub for Israeli water technologies: “Last year I got to meet with Israel Shamay from Israel Innovation Authority and we got to talk about water problems. His immediate solution was to join forces and make sure that Colorado and the Israel Innovation Authority could make Colorado an Innovation hub for Israeli water technologies”.
The fund’s investment focus of cyber for water utilities will help attract leading Israeli cyber technologies to Colorado, connect the Israeli startups with the US market, help them scale and at the same time help Colorado increase its water security, a top priority of the state.