19 Boquist, the newly appointed head of the Tel Aviv office of Vinnova, Sweden’s Innovation Authority. “Vinnova’s mission is to open up for innovation that makes a difference in a sustainable world. My work in Israel will be about connecting two of the world’s leading innovation ecosystems. An important priority will be to increase the knowledge about Sweden as an attractive innovation partner, and vice versa. Sweden has a very vibrant high-tech community, and we hope to work closely with the Israel Innovation Authority in creating greater cooperation and collaborations.” “Swedish multinational corporations are global and a great gateway to international markets,” Boquist adds. “Israeli start-ups have solutions and Swedish MNC’s have the challenges. As such, we have seen these Swedish MNCs, such as Volvo and IKEA, buying Israeli start-ups.” Last November, Stockholm-based multinational Volvo returned to Israel – for a fourth time – with a USD 2 million in Israel-based Spectralics, represented by the law firm Pearl Cohen. “I worked with Volvo back in 2016 when I took them on a fact-finding trip to Israel, their heads were spinning that the whole industry was in Israel,” added Roberth Friedman, Country Manager for Sweden at Israel’s Ministry of Economy & Industry. “They said to me, ‘we want to be in Israel’ and since then Volvo has invested 4 times in Israel.” They are not alone. According to Friedman: “Nordic banks are interested. We do tech scouting for a number of companies, and they come to me saying ‘we are looking for x or y, what can you find for me in Israel?’ We have Volvo Group Venture Capital investing, but also ‘pure’ VCs are also interested, we also know Israeli VCs who want to invest in Sweden.” In December, mobilityXlab, co-founded by Volvo, as well as other leading Swedish firms, CEVT, Ericsson, Veoneer and Zenuity, received the Trade Award 2021 from the Israel Sweden Chamber of Commerce. These partners have all joined to be the global game changers within the field of future mobility. In August 2021, Ingka Group, which owns 389 IKEA stores and e-commerce operations in 32 countries, acquired a minority stake in Jifiti, an Israeli fintech start-up. Koplovitz of Herrick adds: “We see tremendous potential in the Fintech sector, as Israel has raised USD 2.3 billion in H1 2021 alone, and Sweden, for example, which aims to be completely cash-free by 2023, also produced a leading international fintech company, Klarna.” Smart mobility is a vibrant field of collaboration
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