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  • In February, over 23,000 people from 180 countries descended on Jerusalem to attend a tech conference put on by prolific venture capital firm OurCrowd.
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  • Business Insider was there scouting for the hottest, most promising startups in Israel.
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  • We talked to over a dozen people who are in the startup industry for their picks.
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  • Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

In February, just as Coronavirus cases were rising worldwide to the point where Mobile World Congress cancelled its annual event and most other tech conferences followed suit, over 23,000 people from 180 countries descended on Jerusalem to attend the one-day OurCrowd tech conference.

OurCrowd is one of the most active venture capital firms in Irsael - and an unusual one, because it raises its investment funds through crowdsourcing. It has over 42,000 investors who have committed $1.4 billion to its funds, it says.

Israel, known as the startup nation, is one of the world's premiere hotbeds of successful startups, second only to Silicon Valley. That makes the OurCrowd conference the place to be for startups looking for investors, for corporate dealmakers looking for fast-growing Israeli startups with astounding tech to buy, or for investors simply looking for the next big thing.

Business Insider attended the 2020 conference and talked with over a dozen people to find the Israeli startups that had everybody buzzing. We then researched the startups, taking their funding information, including estimated total amount raced, from Pitchbook, the database that keeps such records.

With that legwork, we have determined that these 35 companies are the hottest Israeli startups of 2020.

Are you an insider with insight to share? Contact Julie Bort via email at jbort@businessinsider.com or on encrypted chat app Signal at (970) 430-6112 (no PR inquiries, please). Open DMs on Twitter
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