JERUSALEM, April 16 (Xinhua) -- The Israeli hi-tech startup companies raised a total of 1.55 billion U.S. dollars in the first quarter of 2019, up 28 percent from the same period in 2018, according to a report published Tuesday by Israel's IVC research center and ZAG-S&W law firm.
The amount was raised in 128 deals, up 15 percent from 111 deals in the first quarter of 2018.
The highest increase was made by artificial intelligence (AI) companies, with a rise of about 62 percent in the amount raised and 70 percent in the number of deals.
Thus, in the first quarter of 2019, a total amount of 599 million U.S. dollars was raised in 51 deals in the AI sector, compared to 369 million U.S. dollars raised by 30 AI companies during the same period in 2018.
The data also show that IT and software companies topped the raising list (by sector) in the first quarter of 2019 with 660 million U.S. dollars in 57 deals, compared to 979 million U.S. dollars in the fourth quarter of 2018.
Life sciences companies raised 260 million U.S. dollars in the first quarter, compared to 315 million U.S. dollars in the fourth quarter of 2018.
Communications companies raised 161 million U.S. dollars (compared to 134 million U.S. dollars), and Internet companies 145 million U.S. dollars (compared to 93 million U.S. dollars).
According to the data, in the first quarter of 2019, the median deal amount soared to 6 million U.S. dollars due to 5 deals above 50 million U.S. dollars each.
