Israel calls itself the "startup nation." Israelis say that technology is the country's No. 1 export.
By some counts, Israel is home to 4,800 startups today. It's also home to least two dozen accelerator/incubator programs in the Tel Aviv area, alone, including some run by Microsoft and Google.
There are more incubators in other cities, too, including a program in Jerusalem run by Jerusalem Venture Partners on a campus so big it has its own restaurant and nightclub.
All of this is to say that as a startup hub, Israel is second only to Silicon Valley.
So it's not easy to name the nation's hottest, most exciting startups because everywhere you turn there are young companies doing really cool things.
Business Insider recently spent a week exploring Israel's super hot startup community, meeting with founders, employees and venture capitalists.
(Disclosure: Microsoft and Jerusalem Venture Partners paid some of the travel expenses for this trip.)
We asked everyone to name the nation's coolest, hottest startups.
Waze: crowdsourced traffic reports
Waze is far and away the hottest, most talked about startup in Israel these days.
It's an internationally popular maps-and-navigation app for 30 million drivers worldwide. Drivers report their traffic problems, which is a great way to get real time traffic info.
At one point, Apple was rumored to be buying Waze. That didn't happen but the company is doing so well that co-founder Uri Levine has become an angel investor in other Israeli startups, like Pixtr, the app that makes people look gorgeous in photos.
Waze has offices in Palo Alto, Calif. and New York.
Wix: beautiful websites
Wix is a five-year-old company backed by VC firms like Benchmark and Bessemer.
It provides free and low-cost websites and lets people with no tech background create beautiful sites. Wix hosts over 30 million sites.
In Israel, Wix is known for its gorgeous offices in an up-and-coming area in near the Mediterranean sea called Tel Aviv Port. (Here are some pictures of the office.)
Wix has offices in San Francisco and New York.
BillGuard: a new way to protect you from fraud
BillGuard protects consumers against a kind of fraud-like activity it calls "grey charges." That's where companies sneak regular charges on your credit card.
Once you sign up, you do nothing more. BillGuard monitors the world for fishy transactions and gets the refund for you, for up to three cards for free. It charges $80/year to protect up to 10 cards.
BillGuard has raised $13 million so far from big-named VCs including Bessemer, Khosla, Founders Fund (Peter Thiel's and Sean Parker's fund) and Innovation Endeavors (Google chairman Eric Schmidt).
BillGuard also has an office in New York.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider
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