More than 5,500 startups are operating in Israel today, with 1,400 new ones founded just last year, creating innovative new high-tech products in fields such as software, biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, and 3D printing. A video report for Bloomberg Businessweek took viewers inside Israel’s thriving startup scene.

Israel has been able to replicate Silicon Valley where other countries have failed because it has “come closest to replicating an environment that floods an area with clever engineers, encourages them to take risks, and feeds them with plenty of capital,” Businessweek correspondent Ashlee Vance reported. Due to their army service, “soldiers learn to make quick, massive decisions early on, and they form deep bonds with their comrades that carry over to the startup life.”

In the course of his report, Vance profiled the startups Consumer Physics, which makes a device that can analyze the chemical composition of everyday products; SpacePharma, which is developing ways to adapt drug manufacturing to space; and Umoove, which makes software that can analyze one’s health by tracking eye movements. He also visited Nazareth to meet with Fadi Swidan, the founder of the tech accelerator nazTech, which helps Arab engineers become part of Israel’s tech ecosystem. (Swidan works with Hybrid, an accelerator created by the Israeli Ministry of Economy and Industry, to match Israeli-Arab entrepreneurs with alumni of Unit 8200, the elite IDF intelligence unit whose alumni have gone on to found many successful startups.)

The Washington Post and Yahoo! have also recently reported on Israel’s successful growth in becoming a global leader in cybersecurity.

[Photo: Businessweek ]