There were around 20,000 people at the Oracle World AI Convention, held at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas October 12–16. The delegation from Oracle Israel, consisting of 70 members, stood out for leading some of the most advanced technologies in the world.
Larry Ellison, who founded Oracle in 1977, has a deep appreciation for Israeli innovation and often highlights the groundbreaking technologies and AI solutions developed in Israel, many of which play a pivotal role in Oracle’s global strategy.
Among the companies Ellison mentioned in his keynote speech was Imagene AI, a health-tech company specializing in artificial intelligence for precision medicine. Founded by Dean Bittan, Yonatan Salah and Shahar Porat in 2020, Imagene AI developed breakthrough technology for rapid cancer detection. The company uses data from genomics, biopsies, and medical records to advance clinical trials and personalized medicine, including early disease detection, treatment response prediction, and recurrence assessment.
“It sounds like pure magic and only in Israel does this kind of magic happen,” Safra Catz, former CEO of Oracle, who was appointed senior vice chair of the board this October, said. Bittan developed this technology after his mother was diagnosed with cancer and had to wait three weeks for her biopsy results.
To date, the system has been implemented in approximately 20 medical centers and laboratories worldwide, including several of the largest pharmaceutical companies. The company’s most advanced test can detect cancerous mutations in healthy tissue from a biopsy image in just a few minutes, compared to the several weeks typically required today, allowing personalized treatment to begin much earlier. The test is already approved for marketing and distributed in the U.S. by Tempus. In Israel, the company collaborates with leading medical centers, including Ichilov and Sheba Hospitals.
Imagene AI recently raised $23 million in a Series B funding round, led by Ellison, who also supported the previous round. This brings Imagene AI’s total funding to $45 million. Existing investors, including Aguras Pathology Investments (Il Gura and Dr. David Agus), also participated.
Upon announcing the funding round, Ellison commented: “Imagene AI’s ability to develop a unified artificial intelligence engine that integrates diverse medical and biological data is exactly the kind of breakthrough I believe will drive the next generation of precision medicines and advanced diagnostics. Their approach opens the door to a new era of personalized medicine – adaptive, precise and accessible to all.”
Several other prominent Israeli companies have formed strong partnerships with Oracle, particularly in cloud innovation, enterprise technology and AI. Among them, Nayax, a global leader in cashless payment systems operating in over 75 countries, relies on Oracle Cloud to support its rapid international growth. Amdocs, one of Israel’s largest and most established tech companies, has collaborated with Oracle for years to deliver large-scale telecom and cloud solutions worldwide. Taboola, the Israeli content discovery platform used by major publishers, integrates Oracle Data Cloud to enhance audience analytics and advertising performance.
Ellison, the world’s second-richest person with an estimated $342 billion, has long been a supporter of Israel. Following the events of Oct. 7, 2023, Oracle posted the message, “Oracle stands with Israel,” across its global websites in every local language. No one at Oracle appeared concerned about potential reactions in certain markets.
At the convention, Shmulik Hauzer, head of Oracle’s sales division, told The Journal “We understood that we might lose customers because of our support for Israel, but it didn’t matter to us. Supporting Israel is in our DNA, even if it costs us clients. That’s our agenda.”
Oracle also extended exceptional support to its Israeli employees. During the first months of the war, all employees in Israel received double salaries, including those called up for extended reserve duty. The company donated $1 million to Magen David Adom and launched a global employee fundraising campaign for Israeli nonprofits, pledging to match every dollar raised. Oracle also sent supplies to IDF soldiers, relocated employees living near the Gaza border to central hotels and provided company credit cards for essentials. Employees fearful of remaining in Israel were offered relocation to any world destination they chose. When tensions escalated with Iran, Oracle ensured the safety of employees lacking reinforced shelters (mamad) by moving them to hotels or Airbnb apartments equipped with protected rooms.
Catz moved to the United States at age six with her parents, Leonard and Judith Catz, after her father, a physicist, accepted a position at MIT. She is married to former kibbutznik Gal Tirosh and is a mother of two. Considered to be one of the most influential figures in the global tech industry and a driving force behind Oracle’s growth and strategy, she joined Oracle in 1999 and quickly rose through the ranks, joining the board of directors in 2001 and becoming president in 2004. She is credited with leading Oracle’s aggressive acquisition strategy, including the $10.3 billion purchase of PeopleSoft in 2005, which transformed Oracle into a global enterprise software leader.
Following the death of Mark Hurd in 2019, who had served as co-CEO of Oracle alongside Catz, she became Oracle’s sole CEO. Known for her sharp business instincts and negotiation skills, she has consistently ranked among the most powerful women in business and was the highest-paid woman among Fortune 1000 companies in 2011, earning over $51 million that year.
Catz was visibly moved when meeting the Oracle Israel delegation. She began speaking in Hebrew, later switching to English, reflecting on how emotional she had been the day before when the Israeli hostages were finally freed.
Her strong connection to Israel is well known; she often says, “For us, it’s the U.S., Israel and then the rest of the world. We don’t hide it,” a phrase she repeated that evening before inviting the guests to raise their glasses in celebration of the hostages’ release and Simchat Torah, which was celebrated that night.
