Oct 12, 2017 | By David

A major new international partnership has been set up between organizations in Israel and Youngstown, Ohio. 3D printing will be one of the key areas to benefit from this collaboration, which is intended to support the entry of Israeli technology startups into the U.S. market. The Youngstown Business Incubator (YBI) will be working with two companies that are part of The Junction, a business accelerator based in Tel Aviv.

The Junction is backed by some major global business figures, including HP and SAP, and also has affiliations with F2 Capital, a venture capital fund. Youngstown native Barak Rabinowitz is a managing partner of the fund, and it was partly through his vision that the collaboration with the YBI came about.

According to Rabinowitz, the economically deprived conditions of Youngstown when he was growing up were depressing, and finding out about the YBI was exciting and inspirational for him.

Israel isn’t an ideal place for new businesses to flourish either. As Barb Ewing, CEO of the YBI puts it, ‘‘the Israeli market is rather small, not really surrounded by friendly partners in the countries around them...There’s just no way to scale a company within the geographic boundary that is Israel... They always need to look at either the North American or the European markets."

A delegation of leaders from the Youngstown Business Incubator, as well as Youngstown state president Jim Tressel, took a trip to Israel earlier in the year, and it was as a result of this that the partnership was established.

The two Israeli companies that will initially be benefitting from The Junction’s support are PrintCB and NanoFabrica. PrintCB has an innovative copper-based ink product that can be used for 3D printing, and NanoFabrica is a manufacturer intending to mass-produce nano and micro parts using 3D printing.

Every six months, the Junction issues a call for applications for one of five slots in its business accelerator program. Around 250 companies are narrowed down to 20, and those 20 are then invited to a two-day session with the founders of the Junction. Of those 20 companies, five are selected to work with the Junction. As finalists in this contest, the two firms each received $100,000 in startup money.

Funding is also being provided by the Thomases Family Endowment of the Youngstown Area Jewish Federation. The firms will now be able to expand the reach of their 3D printing business into a receptive and growing U.S. market, while Ohio and perhaps eventually regions elsewhere in the U.S. will benefit from the new jobs that will be created.

Ohio’s existing capabilities in additive manufacturing were part of what convinced the firms to agree to this deal, along with the financial investment.

 PrintCB has already reached out to customers and development partners in the Pittsburgh-to-Cleveland area. Its ink product has the potential to affect manufacturing in the automotive and consumer electronics sectors, amongst others.

According to founder Sagi Daren, “We found a great ecosystem in this area, with hard-working people who understand what we are doing and are keen to try it. Also, there are many large manufacturing corporations based in this area, which makes it very attractive.”

 

 

Posted in 3D Printer Company

 

 

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