Israeli defense-tech startups looking for their next international market may want to look south \u2014 to Australia and New Zealand.<\/p>\n
That was the message at a conference held last week in Haifa by HiCenter Ventures and the New Zealand-Israel Innovation Hub, which brought Israeli investors and defense-tech companies together to explore growing opportunities in the two countries.<\/p>\n
The pitch is straightforward: Australia and New Zealand are increasing defense spending, facing a more challenging security environment in the Indo-Pacific and looking for technologies that can be integrated into military systems they have already purchased from the United States and other allies.<\/p>\n
New Zealand has earmarked $7 billion for defense improvements including strike capabilities, helicopters, anti-tank missiles, maritime and aerial surveillance drones and upgrades to military bases. Australia is targeting defense spending of 3% of GDP and has set a defense budget of about $45 billion for fiscal year 2026-27. Among its priorities are autonomous land and maritime systems, uncrewed aircraft to protect critical infrastructure and secure satellite communications.<\/p>\n
For Israeli startups, the opportunity may be less about competing for massive weapons contracts and more about supplying the software, AI, automation and communications technologies that can upgrade existing platforms.<\/p>\n
\u201cIsraeli defense-tech startups should turn their sights to the Australian and New Zealand markets,\u201d said Ilana Averkin, head of defense-tech at HiCenter Ventures. She argued that the countries combine significant available budgets with an urgent need for innovation and offer startups a way around the \u201cvalley of death\u201d of the highly competitive U.S. procurement system.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The defense tech event held in Haifa. Photo credit:\u00a0HiCenter Ventures<\/p>\n
There is another advantage: Australia and New Zealand are closely integrated with the United States, Britain and Canada on defense. A successful deployment in either market could therefore provide Israeli companies with a foothold across a much broader network of allied defense customers, Averkin said.<\/p>\n
HiCenter is already putting the strategy into practice. The fund recently made its first defense-tech investment in NexTenna, a developer of electronically steerable, flat-panel antennas designed to connect to low-Earth-orbit satellites.<\/p>\n
\u201cEntering the Australian and New Zealand markets is a textbook strategic move for NexTenna,\u201d said HiCenter CEO Lior Hanuka.<\/p>\n
HiCenter entered defense tech just four months ago and says it has already evaluated about 40 startups. The fund has invested in 104 startups since 2021, which have collectively raised more than $300 million.<\/p>\n
For Israeli defense-tech companies accustomed to chasing opportunities in the U.S., the message is increasingly clear: Washington isn’t the only market worth pursuing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Israeli defense-tech startups looking for their next international market may want to look south \u2014 to Australia and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":579186,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,43],"class_list":["post-579185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=579185"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579185\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/579186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=579185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=579185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=579185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}