Israeli soldiers inspect the entrance to what they say is a tunnel used by Hamas terrorists during a ground operation in a location given as Gaza, in this handout image released Nov. 9, 2023. Photo: Israel Defense Forces/Handout via REUTERS
The “shock and horror” of Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre in southern Israel and Israel’s ensuing war against the Palestinian terror group in Gaza is shaping how a defense technology renaissance will unfold, the head of a newly launched $50 million defense tech fund told The Algemeiner on Wednesday.
The Israel Defense Fund, headed by unmanned systems integrator Titan Innovations, is the second dedicated defense fund of its kind with the explicit goal of saving more Israeli lives on the battlefield with homegrown technologies.
According to Menahem Landau, the fund’s managing partner and the former head of UAV and drone technologies at Israel’s defense ministry, the operation in Gaza known as Iron Swords as well as the ongoing war in Ukraine are exposing significant gaps arising from connectivity and communications challenges in addition to AI-rooted threats.
“When dealing with urban warfare, when faced with challenges like dense civilian populations, urban obstacles, and unimaginable underground operations, and when Israel is constantly examined under a microscope by the world, battlefield victories are not enough — efficiency has become critical,” Landau told The Algemeiner.
According to venture capital (VC) monitor Pitchbook, more than $100 billion of VC has been invested in defense tech startups since 2021. Yet despite Israel’s obvious prowess in the defense space, and its reputation as the “Startup Nation,” the country’s technology and defense ecosystems do not have much overlap or interaction. Landau is hoping that will change in 2024 and that VC firms, as well as Israeli entrepreneurs, “will jump on the rising wave of defense tech.”
“Defense tech became a thing thanks mostly to Ukraine and the Indo-Pacific theater. Beyond that, we’re seeing over a trillion dollars in global defense budgets,” Landau said.
An estimated 3,000 terrorists invaded Israel on Oct. 7 by breaching its 40-mile long, $1 billion border fence at several dozen locations. In a statement, the Israel Defense Fund said it aims to identify technologies that can effectively address gaps in border security. The technologies can also be transferred to bridge existing gaps with US Homeland Security, Landau said.
“Seen through our lens, this means autonomous systems that accurately detect incoming threats in real-time, hidden from the enemy, with better survivability, and dynamic in its nature,” Landau said.
With 136 hostages still being held in Hamas’ vast subterranean tunnel network, estimated to stretch at least 380 miles, the fund also aims to prioritize technologies for conducting tunnel warfare, including specially-adapted search and rescue technologies.
Drones have played an enormous role in the war, even as early as Oct. 7 itself. In one instance that garnered headlines, the head of security at Or HaNer, a Gaza periphery kibbutz, was able to thwart a terrorist infiltration by deploying drones.
The drones “detected enemy movement and location prompting immediate mobilization of kibbutz security forces, averting a massacre in their kibbutz,” Oded Lipshitz, general partner at the Israel Defense Fund, told The Algemeiner.
Lipshitz went on to say that soldiers in Gaza also reported the huge benefits of drones for providing real-time threat detection and nullifying the use of “soldiers acting as human scouts.”
But Lipshitz stressed that the use of drones on the battlefield is limited “on account of connectivity challenges” and that Israeli drones, despite their abundance, still faced various obstacles in “working together in combat.”
Landau highlighted further obstacles faced by unmanned operations.
“On one hand, our guys are describing the moments of utilizing drone ops as ‘oxygen to their lungs’ and ‘our eyes in the sky,’ but these experiences are short-lived due to interruptions and neutralizations [of the drones] because of the environment, the enemy, and our own forces,” he said.
The fund hopes to mitigate the brief lifespan of drones by investing in AI-based sensors, software, and communication solutions needed for connectivity, GPS, threat detection, and unified command and platforms. Such technologies will also lead to preventing instances of friendly fire, Landau said.
The fund’s strength, he said, relies on the fact that it is “intimately familiar” with the ecosystem and the relevant technologies needed to allow for the development and deployment of fully integrated solutions.
More than half the CEOs from portfolio companies in Titan Innovation’s previous defense investment fund, which oversaw the development of game changing security systems like “Ronen” and “David,” were called up to war on Oct. 7 as reservists. “It has been enriching to get reports from the battlefield as to what works and where the challenges lie,” he said.
“We feel like it’s our moral imperative to show the world that Israel has the resilience and innovation to swiftly overcome all challenges and preserve our qualitative military edge and deterrence,” Landau said.
