ISRAEL: ENEL WINS THE TENDER TO START A LABORATORY ON FINTECH AND CYBERSECURITY
The consortium formed by Enel X (30%) and Mastercard (70%) has won the tender for the establishment of a new ‘Innovation Lab’ on fintech and cybersecurity, obtaining 13 million NIS funding (about 3.4 million euros) by the Israeli Government. The new centre, called Finsec Lab, will be located in Beer Sheva, a city in southern Israel, at the gateway to the Negev desert, which has established itself as a national and global hub of the cybertech sector and will host innovative start-ups for the development of cyber defence solutions for the financial sector.
The project will be supported for three years by the IIA (Israel Innovation Authority), the Ministry of Finance and the National Cyber Directorate, which will finance each start-up that will be incubated in the laboratory to develop a ‘proof of concept’ up to 85% of the budget (and up to 500,000 NIS, about 130,000 euros). The Enel X-Mastercard consortium will guarantee an initial investment equal to that of the Innovation Authority and, in the management of the Laboratory, will select, according to their needs, the start-ups to be incubated that can be further developed/integrated in their respective business.
