VC Cafe was born four years ago, in December of 2005. Back then, under goisrael.blogspot.com, my goal was ambitious but simple. VC Cafe was to be a source of positive news about Israel, beyond what one sees on CNN or BBC by providing a spotlight on early stage Israeli start ups, which often conceive brilliant ideas and technology but sometimes lack the visibility of potential clients and investors outside of Israel. I learned this on my own after co-founding a tech start up in Israel. Covering the Israeli start up scene was a lonely niche, shared by maybe one more blog and minor coverage by traditional Israeli newspapers at the time.
600 posts and over 8 million (!) hits later, I’m very proud to see what we have accomplished, and I say WE because I couldn’t have done it without the unwavering support of many of you and the exceptional work of VC Café’s contributing writers. Together we have covered hundreds of product launches and funding rounds, interviewed dozens of CEOs and highlighted Israeli start up achievements wherever and whenever they have occurred.
I’m happy to say that despite a worldwide economic meltdown in 2009, the Israeli start up industry is thriving more now than ever. Israeli start ups receive the full backing from top tier international VCs and are sought after M&A targets by major global corporations. There are numerous blogs, meetups and conferences dedicated to start ups in or from the holy land specifically. Heck, there’s now even a book about the secret sauce that makes Israel the Start up Nation.
After five years of living abroad (New York, San Francisco and London) and working for multi-national companies, I have decided that 2010 is the time for me to leave the corporate world, take all the learnings and do something meaningful on my own. As such, next year I will be taking the entrepreneurship plunge myself and am already fast at work researching ideas and forming a founders dream team.
So, I’ll take the opportunity to wish you all a happy new year and shana tova from the VC Cafe team. Here’s a toast for a successful 2010 with lots of new beginnings.
I'm a former general partner at google ventures, head of Google for Entrepreneurs in Europe and founding head of Campus London, Google's first physical hub for startups.
I'm also the founder of Techbikers, a non-profit bringing together the startup ecosystem on cycling challenges in support of Room to Read. Since inception in 2012 we've built 11 schools and 50 libraries in the developing world.
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