The start of 2015 has seen Israel’s economy face a string of fiscal and monetary challenges. This uncertainty is fuelled by political uncertainties of an unexpected general election campaign, which will peak on March 17th.

Yet despite these distractions and the war last summer with Hamas, “Israeli high-tech-company exits reached a record of close to $15b last year, double 2013’s $7.6 billion.” And 2015 looks to have commenced in similar fashion. Within the space of 48 hours, “two Israeli startup companies have been bought for a combined $570 million”.

What is impressive this time are the names of those people backing Israeli tech and its future. For example: –

1) Amazon.com has finally taken its first step in the Holy Land. The company has purchased Annapurna Labs, which is involved in the semiconductor space. Significantly, it is expected that the US$ 350m deal will launch an r&d base in the region for the conglomerate.

2) Dropbox is another first-timer in Israel. It now controls CloudOn, a developer of mobile productivity tools with an engineering hub in Herzliya. The deal is valued at around US$100m.

3) Alibaba, the on-line retail giant, conducted a high-level visit to Israel just recently. The first result is the acquisition of Visualead from Tel Aviv. For US$6m, the Chinese company will grab hold of a new set of codes that can be scanned by smartphones.

4) Harman Industries Inc. makes vehicle entertainment and information systems. It has taken over Red Band Software for US$200m. The company “provides software for remote management of mobile devices, including tablets and smartphones. The company says that its product is currently installed in more than two billion cellular devices.”

Many other names could be added to this list, such as MasterCard, Samsung and Verizon. What is encouraging at a time of yet more stress in the Middle East is that many of the world’s commercial giants are upping their faith in Israel.