It is very common (almost required) when reporting on companies/startups (and even people) to mention their location. Doubly so if the location isn't where the reporter is located or where you may assume a different location not given that information. Sometimes in the title. Almost always in the body. Including a location is part of journalism.

"US based startup brings families together. "

"Silicon Valley startup revolutionizes washing clothes."

"Researchers in Germany find life on Mars."

"DC defense contractor wastes millions of dollars in government money."

I just Googled for a second and found "Wipro sells 8% stake in US-based startup Axeda, bought after Rishad Premji took over as strategy head"

This was on Slashdot the other day - "European Researchers Develop More Accurate Full Body Polygraph"

None of those sound odd or are nationalistic labels. Why do you assume that simply mentioning Isreal is being nationalistic?

"Who what when where why how".

Because it's an interesting fact. Lots of articles talk about SV startups, Berlin startups, London startups etc. I find it interesting to know where the company is from. If the BBC was reporting on a 'British startup' you could consider that nationalistic (although I wouldn't). But a British news company mentioning the country of a foreign startup is hardly nationalistic in any way.

I've noticed from years of reading Wikipedia that on articles on people, if the side section or first paragraph contains anything related to their background (religion or race) it almost always is there to state that they are Jewish. I don't know why, this isn't a conspiracy theory, but perhaps somebody thinks it's important that if somebody is Jewish in heritage everybody should know.

Perhaps Jewish people want to be publicly known as Jewish? Just a guess... Wikipedia always mentions nationally though.

Forgive me, but where did they mention it as Jewish start-up? Do you know that there are 25% non-Jews living in Israel?

Not that anyone in Israel wants to acknowledge that.

On the contrary, most Israelis are quite proud of the fact that 1/4 of the population are not Jewish, as well as the fact that those citizens have full rights and freedoms (more than they would in any of the neighboring countries). Though I have seen very little mention of either of these facts in the inordinate number of media stories about Israel.

Full rights and freedoms. Sure. http://adalah.org/eng/Israeli-Discriminatory-Law-Database

Tachat's reply undermines what you're saying more than anything Adalah can, as you're saying that a human rights organisation is pathetic, thus cementing that even though you'll argue that "oh no, we're not racist", you've just expressed contempt for a NGO dedicated to bettering the lives of humans.

I also see that Tachat, you only exist to reply to comments about Israel. How sad your life must be.

That's your source? Pathetic.

Interesting. Are you sure of this?

Probably because it's not from the U.S. I encountered a lot of startup descriptions like european based startup, german/berlin startup, etc. The place isn't that important, but some think that it's mention worthy if it's not from a startup cluster.

I guess it was done to boost the “novelty factor”. Beware, however, that the startup itself is probably not responsible for the crappiness of reporting. I don't presume they control the publishers.

I guess any disruptiv startup not born in california or the US is unusual.

That, plus the fact that israel, as a country, has made the choice of focusing 100% on high tech, so it's always interesting to know if/when that choice pays off.

>> "I guess any disruptiv startup not born in california or the US is unusual."

Seriously? You really think disruptive startups made outside the US are unusual?

I think that is a reasonable assumption given the data over the past century. I wouldn't view such a statement as a value judgement, but instead as a (possible) interpretation of the facts... The US has a disproportionate share of innovation relative to the rest of the world. Nassim Taleb (originally from Lebanon and educated in both the US and Europe) suggests that this is due to greater tolerance of failure in the US, as opposed to greater risk aversion on the part of other countries.

Note: I'm not passing judgement either way, but I wanted to point out that the idea that the US is more innovative/disruptive is not at all an extreme claim and is in fact one made by many others.

I do, yes. By unusual i mean statistically. Of course there are great innovative people everywhere, but it seems like the US managed to be exceptionnaly good at having the right combinination of top level university, venture capitalism, and market size, that enable groundbrealink technologies become successful commercialy.

I think it's your choice of word that's wrong. Silicon Valley obviously produces many more disruptive technologies than the rest of the world but that doesn't make it unusual to see something from another country disrupt. Silicon Valley is unusual in that everything is so concentrated allowing a high output. The rest of the world is NORMAL :) It's also important to remember a lot of the people doing great things in Silicon Valley aren't from the US.