In January of last year, Gil Ben-Artzy and Shuly Galili launched a startup accelerator with the intent to expose Silicon Valley to the next generation of hot Israeli tech companies — and vice versa. While Israel has long been a hotbed for innovation and is home to the R&D labs of many of the world’s biggest tech companies, the founders saw an opportunity to create a more fluid connection… → Read More
It’s that time of the year for one of the Israeli startup community’s staple events, TWS. This year the event’s founder, and Pops CEO, Yaron Orentstein is collaborating with Israel’s most popular tech blog, Newsgeek.co.il to showcase some up and coming Israeli early-stage startups (and a couple from Europe).
Here are the startups presenting on-stage in Tel-Aviv this morning:
Overwolf adds… → Read More
Our hair-brained idea to pilot a Brazilian Pavilion at the upcoming TechCrunch Disrupt has taken a life of its own!
We expected 10 startups to show interest. Boy did we underestimate… There are now — wait for it — 76 Brazilian startups that have signed-up to take part in the Pavilion! This is on top of the 23 Israeli startups that have lined-up for their own Pavilion.
But the… → Read More
It was at TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco in 2011 where a fine tradition began, namely, the Israeli Pavilion.
No less than 20 early-stage Israeli startups flew-in from Israel to demo and network themselves to the bone for three non-stop days.
The inaugural Pavilion was such a success, we decided to have another one at the past Disrupt in NYC. It too was a huge success with yet another 20… → Read More
There is certainly no shortage of startup incubators and accelerators these days, but Silicon Valley’s Upwest Labs is doing something especially unique. Upwest, which got off the ground in January, focuses on entrepreneurs with Israeli roots — it brings them to Palo Alto, California for three months where they work around the clock to amp up their existing startups to Silicon Valley speed. → Read More
This post is co-written with Daniel Cunha, my partner at Initial Capital.
In Part I, we outlined some of the challenges facing the Brazilian startup community as it sets-out to reap the massive opportunity the local market has to offer. In Part II below, we’re going to suggest a course of action, and how it could benefit through the experience of the Israeli startup industry.
Step One… → Read More
Initial Capital was launched in 2011 as an investment firm targeting early stage startups in Israel and Brazil. The unlikely investment focus is the result of three friends — two Israeli and one Brazilian — turned professional investors.
Our Israeli investment network was rather mature when we launched, so we were able to hit the ground running and in the nine months since our launch… → Read More
Startup incubator DreamIt Ventures is announcing the first Israel-U.S. accelerator, which will help up to five Israeli startups expand into the U.S. market through DreamIt’s NYC 2012 program. The new program, called DreamIt Israel, will take place over four months, with the first month in Israel followed by three months in New York. The startups will also participate in two Demo Day events – one… → Read More
MyHeritage, Israel’s best hope of having a big Web 2.0 winner, keeps marching along, leaving Geni further in the dust and proving a surging challenger for already-public Ancestry.com.
The company has nearly 60 million registered users, who have uploaded 20 million family trees, 800 million profiles and 125 million photos on the site. All of that inventory is helping fulfill the early promise of… → Read More
In the four weeks since the social protests have begun in Israel, hundreds have been killed, dozens of women have reportedly been raped, a number of children tortured, and countless districts have been looted. The authorities have imposed a complete lock-down on all cellular networks. All access to Facebook and Twitter has been blocked. Little information is going in, or out.
Except the… → Read More
Israel has had an amazing track record of producing startups and raking in returns– better than most countries many times its size. The problem is the returns have fallen off dramatically in the last ten years as industries Israel excelled at have become mature. Meanwhile, it’s failed to generate many big consumer Web hits, aside from MyHeritage and a few others.
I’ve traveled to Israel… → Read More
In this week’s show, we talk to one of our favorite angel investors, Saul Klein, who just wrapped up his third annual Seedcamp in London. In addition to being a partner at the powerful Index Ventures and having a British accent — which lonely expat Paul can’t get enough of– Klein is impressive because he’s one of the only angel investors who has made what is traditionally an intensely local way… → Read More
For some people, buying up iPads in the US in bulk and selling them in their home countries for $2,000 and more means serious business. But don’t do that in Israel, at least for now. The country’s Ministry of Communications has started banning all iPad imports yesterday because of the difference in Wi-Fi standards in the US and Israel. → Read More
The way venture capital firms are structured makes it almost impossible for outsiders to see what’s really going on inside those 1970s lodge-like Sand Hill Road offices. It’s an industry perfectly structured for sweeping problems under the rug, and as its fundamentals have declined over the last decade, that’s just what it’s been doing. But those big, lumpy problems are getting harder and… → Read More
Not sure why this suddenly came up and I’m not going to get into the politics of this, but Israeli security, in an apparent fit of pique, shot a young woman’s laptop at the airport. → Read More
Hey, all: I, John Biggs, will be in Israel from the Sept 5 through the 10th. I’d love to meet up with some great start-ups in the Jerusalem/Tel Aviv area. I’m most interested in the great gadgets coming out of there but I’m happy to sit down with local folks to talk web services.
If you’d like to sponsor an hour of drinks, please let me know. Either way, RSVP to john@crunchgear.com with the… → Read More
TEL AVIV– The other day I spoke at an Israeli event called Techonomy where six handpicked Israeli startups were demoing new products. The companies were impressive, the audience packed, it was sponsored by blue-chip tech names, and well-heeled experts were on stage offering feedback.
In fact, it could have been just like a Silicon Valley event a la TechCrunch 50 in every way except one: Experts… → Read More
Deloitte recently released the results of its VC Indicator Survey (PDF), conducted among Israeli VCs this past month. The complied results are so pessimistic they paint a warm and fuzzy aura around Sequoia’s Doom & Gloom presentation.
Participated by approximately 80 Israeli venture capitalists, the survey predicts 2009 will be an extremely painful year for the Israeli startup industry in… → Read More
Those wacky Israelis! Police there used a “skunk bomb” for the first time on Friday as part of a crowd control action. The bomb is actually more like super soaker water gun that sprays a vile smelling liquid on people. The liquid is so foul smelling, that people instantly recoil against it. The theory is, if people are freaking out over the horrific smell, they’ll stop doing whatever it… → Read More
In a recent press release, Israeli telecommunications company Bezeq announced that it’s “launching the first ‘kosher’ telephone line in Israel under the name ‘Clean Line’. The new service blocks access to content deemed inappropriate for haredi (strictly observant) Jews.” Incoming and outgoing calls to numbers labeled as inappropriate by a council of… → Read More
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Disrupt Europe: Berlin Hackathon
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