"Austin is like Israel without the PTSD": Why Israeli investors are flocking to the Texas capital
"Austin is like Israel without the PTSD": Why Israeli investors are flocking to the Texas capital
Serial entrepreneur Micha Breakstone spoke to CTech about the growing community of Israelis in Silicon Hills
The Lone Star State’s pro-Israel, pro-business position is well documented. For years, Texas has been proudly Zionistic with its public support for the country amid its ongoing war, at the same time promoting business opportunities between both nations. As Austin settles into its role as a growing tech hub in the region, a group of 40 or so Israeli entrepreneurs labelled as "cream of the crop" by Micha Breakstone are starting to call it home.
“They're usually under the radar, but some incredible companies are Israeli companies and based in Austin,” said Breakstone, who has been living in Austin for almost four years. He is perhaps most notable for the $575 million purchase of his company Chorus.ai by business intelligence firm ZoomInfo in 2021.
Today, he is the co-founder and CEO of the Biomed company Somite, where he works with co-founders and scientists in Boston on what they call ‘the OpenAI of stem cell biology’. The company has raised almost $12 million for its cell research to restore tissue for almost any non-infectious or non-cancerous disease such as Macular Degeneration (to improve vision), Parkinson’s, and epilepsy. Alongside a team of co-founders including Olivier Pourquie, Allon Klein, Jay Shendure, Cliff Tabin, and CTO Jonny Rosenfeld, he is optimistic the company will reach similar success as previous ventures.
Some early studies relating to the treatment of type 1 Diabetes have led to what Breakstone has called a complete normalization of glucose levels. “It’s basically science fiction,” he called the research. “When we show this to leading scientists, they gasp.” Over time the company expects to generate the world’s largest cell signaling dataset and generate the world’s first AI-generated cell-differentiation protocols for somite cell lineages.
Somite currently doesn’t operate in Texas, but future plans may include it as a location as it broadens operations, as well as Israel. Despite taking weekly trips to his work team in Massachusetts, he also invests time in fostering a community in Texas. “There's one thing I characterize Austin with: it is that the people are probably the nicest I've ever met,” he continued. “They're Texan warmth - just very happy and life is good.”
Alongside other mainstays like Texas Venture Partners’ Lorne Abony and Tal Shmueli, Breakstone occasionally hosts meetups in the community similar to Founders Club, a Tel Aviv-based initiative made up of 400 members each of whom has raised at least $5 million. The idea is that those who have obtained initial milestones in tech can connect, help each other, and help boost the ecosystem. Previous guests who have visited the city to take part include prominent pro-Israel advocate Hillel Fuld and Hetz Ventures Founder and Managing Partner Judah Taub.
In recent years, Austin has obtained the moniker ‘Silicon Hills’, a nod to California’s Silicon Valley, due to the tech ecosystem being built in the city. Its position as a hub can be traced back to the 1980s when Dell first founded its offices there but has since grown to include more than 5,5000 startups, including the likes of Silicon Labs, Apple, Google, Meta, and Indeed all having offices there.
With rising antisemitic sentiments across the United States, Austin is also becoming an attractive site for Israeli founders looking to expand their operations in the country. As of December 2024, there have been a confirmed 2.5 million new jobs across the state since Governor Greg Abbott took office in 2015. As for its relationship with Israel, it can boast $966 million of exports to Israel and receives $1.663 billion in imports as of 2022, according to the United States-Israel Business Alliance.
“It's a little less cutthroat more jovial,” said Breakstone, comparing Austin to other traditional tech hubs like New York or Silicon Valley. “It's extremely authentic. One way to characterize Austin is like Israel without the PTSD.” The state has been unabashedly pro-Israel since the war broke out in 2023. “Anybody who is an enemy of Israel is an enemy of Texas,” Governor Abbott once said in Jerusalem. “Whenever anybody threatens Israel, we come side by side with Israel to support Israel in any way we can.”
For folks like Breakstone and other Israeli founders and investors, the city offers “a robust community” promising innovation, collaboration, and prosperity. “People here are extremely connected to Israel. The Israelis that do come here definitely are Zionistic and care deeply about Israel. I'm really proud to be an Israeli in Austin, and I'm really proud to be a Zionistic Israeli in Austin,” he concluded.
