The leap from a promising prototype to a market-ready product is one of the most difficult transitions in the innovation lifecycle. For Israeli companies, where the “Start-Up Nation” ethos thrives, this stage often determines whether a breakthrough idea becomes a global success story or stalls in development.
According to Dori Exterman, chief evangelist at Incredibuild, the challenge is universal. His company, which has spent more than two decades helping developers accelerate software delivery, was itself born out of frustration.
“Incredibuild itself was born from that same process – founded by two developers who set out to solve a problem they knew intimately: painfully long build times,” he explained. “From that pain point grew a platform that enables developers to iterate and deliver code faster, especially today as AI coding pushes the bottleneck from coding to waiting for your builds and tests to execute.”
Exterman emphasized that success requires relentless focus on core values and that keeping the product easy to adopt is crucial.
“As a mature start-up that serves the world’s largest development organizations, focusing on the core value of your offering is crucial. You constantly need to improve to allow your users the faster cycles they are striving for in today’s competitive landscape. From hours to minutes to seconds, delivering new features to the market sooner is crucial," he said, adding that “when serving the world’s largest software companies, banks, and automotive and game studios, you need to achieve your goals while meeting strict security and scaling requirements.”
Additionally, “The lesson we’ve learned is that the software ecosystem is always thriving for faster iterations, especially with the introduction of agentic AI coding, and if you’ll be able to build a technology that achieves this goal in the most efficient way and is easy to adopt, your customers will follow.”
Therefore, he explained, “As we continue to evolve, Incredibuild’s offering is naturally evolving toward an AI-powered platform designed to bring intelligent automation and optimization to every stage of the software lifecycle and pipeline execution.”
Refining deep-tech for scale
Exterman pointed to three Israeli companies in varying stages, flō Optics, Imma Health, and BeeSense, as examples of how innovators navigate the perilous path from prototype to market.
Deep-tech start-up flō Optics has developed a digital printing technology for coating optical lenses. Now in its beta phase, the company is moving from R&D to real-world testing and validation.
For CEO Jonathan Jaglom, this stage is less about invention and more about refinement – ensuring the company’s digital printing technology delivers consistent quality and reliability at a commercial scale.
“It’s one thing to build a breakthrough prototype,” he said, “and another to build a product that runs seamlessly day after day in production environments.”
A major factor in flō Optics’ progress has been the decision to form strategic partnerships early on. Collaborations with MEI Systems and SDC Technologies (part of Mitsui Chemicals) have helped bridge the gap between innovation and industrial-scale deployment. MEI contributes expertise in ophthalmic lens automation, while SDC brings decades of know-how in advanced coatings. Together helping align the product closely with market needs.
Instead of rushing to launch, flō Optics is deploying beta units at select customer sites, where technicians test the system under real production conditions. This feedback loop allows the team to fine-tune performance and usability before full commercialization.
The next milestone is the growth phase, when manufacturing and service operations will scale globally. For Jaglom, the real signal that the company is ready for market will come directly from its beta partners: “When customers tell us the product delivers the quality and reliability they need every day – that’s when we know it’s time to go full speed ahead.”
Imma Health, a women-led Israeli company developing an automated at-home transvaginal self-scanning device for fertility monitoring, is advancing from prototype to pre-commercial validation as it prepares for FDA submission.
Imma Health Chief Medical Officer Dr. Nadia Prisant pointed out that “the key challenge has been transforming a functional robotic concept into a reliable, regulatory-grade device that performs consistently in real-world settings. Guided by our CTO’s technical vision – our main asset in bridging engineering and clinical performance – we designed the system by integrating insights from physicians and patients to optimize comfort, usability, and diagnostic quality.
“Critical decisions included overcoming the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) hurdle and adopting a modular design for reliability and scalability. In hindsight, launching pilot studies with patients earlier would have accelerated usability refinement. Balancing development pace with product quality remains essential – we prioritize safety, data integrity, and user experience over rapid release.”
Prisant noted that balancing speed with safety is paramount and concluded that “our next milestone is completing multi-site clinical validation under FDA oversight, confirming imaging reproducibility and marking Imma’s readiness for market introduction."
On the defense front, BeeSense, operating under the public company Autonomous Guard, is one of Israel’s leading defense technology firms, providing advanced solutions for detecting ground, air, and maritime threats.
Founded in 1996 by veterans of Unit 81, the company has delivered cutting-edge surveillance systems to the IDF, the Defense Ministry, and other defense organizations over the years. Recently, it launched the Firefly 500 – an innovative wide area situation awareness system with a 500-meter range and a 90-degree coverage angle, featuring four daytime cameras, four thermal cameras, an advanced radar system, and AI GPU-based capabilities.
According to Baruch Dilion, CEO of Autonomous Guard and BeeSense, “the product is already operational and at TRL9 (Technology Readiness Level), but the journey was challenging.”
He spoke about having had to deal with extreme environmental conditions, updating command-and-control systems to accommodate a new sensor, and transitioning the development into serial production while building complete product dossiers.
Dilion added that one of the critical decisions was component selection, clarifying that “Constraints emerged that sent us back to the drawing board” and in hindsight, he said, “we should have met with more stakeholders and potential clients to understand the requirements upfront.”
Launched during Israel’s Iron Swords War, the Firefly 500 is already operational at TRL9 (Technology Readiness Level) and undergoing field tests with beta clients. “Operational needs in the field dictate the pace,” Dilion said. “We balance immediate demands with the need to ensure stability and technological maturity.”
The bigger picture
From software acceleration to medtech and defense, these stories highlight a common truth: Israeli innovation excels at invention, but commercialization requires persistence, partnerships, and patience.
The companies that succeed are those that can transform breakthrough ideas into reliable, scalable products, without losing sight of the speed and agility that made them innovators in the first place.