For Israel's high-tech startups, it's the dot-com days all over again. In the third quarter, they raised a total of $660 million, the largest quarterly figure since 2000.
That was a 34% jump from the $493 million in Q2. In the first nine months of 2013, 474 companies raised $1.63 billion from investors, a 12% jump from the comparable period in 2012.
See also: The 20 Hottest Startups in Israel
These findings from The IVC Research Center come after Facebook purchased the Israel-based Onavo for a reported $120 million earlier this week.
Google's purchase of Waze, another Israeli startup, for more than $1 billion was also seen as a watershed moment for the Israeli tech scene. However, not everyone is convinced that it's a time for high fives — most notably, Sarah Lacy of Pando Daily, who argued that Israel's tech scene hasn't lived up to its promise.
Lacy's post prompted a long reply by Michael Eisenberg and Eden Shochat, Israeli VCs who recently launched Aleph, a $140 million fund for startups in that country. The two countered that investors and observers should judge Israeli tech by its future rather than its past.
Tel Aviv, Israel's capital and the site of much of the activity, was named the No. 2 startup ecosystem in the world, next to Silicon Valley, according to researcher Startup Genome. There are said to be 5,000 startups in the country, which has a population around 7 million.
Benny Shahiv, CEO of Clear Sky Apps, says that's part of the culture.
"Everyone I know wants to start a company," Shahiv said. "My daughter's kindergarten teacher probably wants to start a startup."
Image: Kudumomo