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February 2024

New Grants Will Aid Ashkelon Businesses

October 10, 2023

Dear Friends,

The Maryland/Israel Development Center adds its voice in unwavering support of Israel as it confronts and responds to the recent and unprecedented violent terrorist attacks. We stand with our friends and family in Israel and support the recent statement from the Baltimore Jewish Council. We also remain in steadfast support of the Israeli companies that we work with and their families in both Maryland and Israel.

The Associated: Jewish Federation of Baltimore has already started an emergency campaign to aid in assisting the victims of this war with humanitarian services and support measures. 100% of your donation will go directly to this life saving work. We encourage you to please use this link to make your donation or send a check to The Associated: Jewish Community Federation of Baltimore, 101 W. Mount Royal Ave., Baltimore, MD 21201.

We pray for peace and healing.

David Kuntz, Chair, MIDC
David Speer, Executive Director, MIDC

The world’s largest insurance market is turning to small Israeli startups to disrupt and enable their operations. Many of these insurance companies are unicorns (privately held companies worth at least $1 Billion). Read the Israel21c article on how several companies are transforming the insurance industries. Read more>>>.

US cybersecurity company Tenable announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Israeli cloud security company Ermetic for $265 million. Globes reported recently that the two companies were in the advanced stages of negotiations. Tenable’s first acquisition in Israel was the Tel Aviv-based cybersecurity company Indegy for around $100 million in December 2019. Read about the recent acquisition>>>.

David Speer, MIDC Executive Director, was recently interviewed and asked why Maryland attracts hi tech Israeli companies. Maryland and Israel share many parallel strengths in industries such as medical, biotech, pharma, life sciences, defense, and cyber security. Both have a highly educated workforce and Maryland’s East Coast location and proximity to 50+ federal agencies are some reasons Maryland is home to over 40 Israeli companies.  Read the entire interview>>>.

The Israel-US Binational Industrial R&D Foundation (BIRD) has approved $8 million in funding for nine innovative projects between US and Israeli companies in various technological sectors. The Maryland connection is Adventist HealthCare and Agado Live will be developing an end-to-end remote rehabilitation platform for neurologic diseases. Read more about the companies and their projects>>>.

The Maryland Department of Commerce recently announced the family-owned manufacturing company First Breach is producing ammunition components at a newly leased 279,000 square-foot facility at the New Heights Industrial Park near the Hagerstown Regional Airport. The company is licensed with the U.S. Department of Defense and Israel’s Ministry of Defense.

A family-owned manufacturing company is officially up and running in Washington County.

First Breach  is producing ammunition components at a newly leased 279,000 square-foot facility at the New Heights Industrial Park near the Hagerstown Regional Airport. The company is licensed with the U.S. Department of Defense and Israel’s Ministry of Defense.

Run by father and son duo Jeffrey and Jordan Low, along with a team of experienced managers, the family operation is proud to manufacture its items strictly in Maryland and the U.S. The company’s highly-technical facility in Washington County includes fabrication machines, ovens, and polishers, and allows First Breach to produce various best-in-class products made with high-precision.

The idea for First Breach came to Jordan after joining the Israeli military and studying at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem 

He believed he could make a significant impact by serving overseas, and later felt a calling to start a business with his father within the defense industry. The name of the company comes from the name of Jordan’s military unit, which translates to “The First Breachers,” or those known for being on the front lines.

First Breach currently has 24 employees and expects to more than double its workforce over the next two years. The company is exploring state incentives to assist with its anticipated growth, including the One Maryland Tax Credit and More Jobs for Marylanders program.

Read more about First Breach and how the company was formed.

Rekor Systems, Inc (NASDAQ:REKR), is a trusted global authority in developing and delivering roadway intelligence using state-of-the-art AI and machine learning. Pioneering the implementation of digital infrastructure in our communities, Rekor is redefining infrastructure by collecting, connecting, and organizing the world’s mobility data — laying the foundation for a digital-enabled operating system for the road. Rekor’s US headquarters are in Howard County. Learn more about Rekor as they lead the way in digital infrastructure and continue to deliver on their accelerated growth trajectory. 

Rockville-based Israeli start-up RightHear recently installed their Indoor Wayfinding System at the Columbia Lighthouse for the Blind offices in Silver Spring, helping to advance accessibility and independence for the organization’s employees and clients. Read more>>>.  

This follows the recent installment of the system at the Israeli Knesset Parliament, making it the first totally accessible parliament building in the world. Click to read about the Knesset Installation.

CyTwist is an early-stage Israeli cyber security company headquartered in Ramat Gan. In 2022, Jason Kaplan of Maryland became CyTwist’s CEO. CyTwist is part of the Maryland Innovation Center in Howard County, an initiative of the Howard County Economic Development Authority.

CyTwist’s founders were senior officers in the Israeli Security Agency focused on counter-terrorism. In this role, the absolute requirement was to identify possible threats as early as possible in the “attack chain” to stop terrorists from executing their malicious intent. CyTwist is now bringing the same methods to cyber security via its Preemptive Cyber Attack Management (PCAM) platform.

The problem CyTwist addresses and solves is today’s cyber-attack detection tools do not identify attacks accurately, early or efficiently. The model has been to collect more and more data, buy many “best of breed” tools to solve narrow detection problems, and then use human analysts for advanced detection. This has led to companies using dozens of tools, chasing large numbers of false positive, incurring massive storage costs, burning out staff and still being relatively ineffective and inefficient at stopping attacks.

CyTwist’s platform solves these problems. Their key benefit is time: early attack detection means time to respond before damage, prioritization of threat alerts means time back for teams to focus on high value work, and delivering full attack details up front means faster response to attacks.

CyTwist is early in its life cycle, and proving every day that they deliver better protection with lower cost and greater efficiency.

“Maryland will be a great place for CyTwist to grow with all the talent and the strong cyber security ecosystem”, said Jason Kaplan, CEO, CyTwist.