Invest in Israel Newsletter – June 2012 Edition. This month’s trend continues to be acquisitions of Israeli firms by large US corporates. Lots of returns are being made these days, but the latest CalPers report shows dissapointing returns by Israeli VC firms, with an IRR of 3.5%-3.8% to JVP and Carmel, the highest performing funds.
In this Google I/O session, "It's a Startup World", moderated by my talented colleague Bridgette Sexton, a panel of international startup community leaders shared some of the best practices from their experience. The panel included Erik Hersman (Kenya ,founder of iHub), Eden Shochat (Israel, founder of Face.com, VC at Genesis, founder of The Junction), Jon Bradford (UK/Ireland, founder of Springboard), Jeffery Paine (Singapore, Golden Gate Ventures) and Jehan Ara (Pakistan).
This morning, I attended the VC session titled "From Weekend Hack to Funded Startup - How to Build Your Team and Raise Money", with Naval Ravikant (founder of AngelList, ePinions, VentureHacks), Rich Miner (Partner at Google Ventures and co-founder of Android) and Kevin Rose (founder of Digg, Milk, Pownce and Partner at Google Ventures), moderated by Don Dodge. Below are the highlights from the session, including some great questions from the audience.
This past weekend I mentored and judged in my third "Lean Startup Machine" (LSM) at the offices of Forward Internet Group in Camden. This post is for people who have an idea and don't know how to execute on it as well as a few tips for those who are planning to attend similar events.
Last week I participated in the EU's Digital Agenda Assembly 2012 ("DAA12"), a speaker in the plenary session titled: "Delivering Internet-based innovation as a way out of the crisis: the role of Horizon 2020" and as a participant in the workshop on Innovation and Entrepreneurship. One of the things that struck me the most is how the narrative is changing from 'Austerity' to 'Growth'.
LeWeb, probably the biggest tech conference in Europe, migrated from Paris to London for the first time this year. While lots of the 'action' happened on stage, I was asked to moderate a few "Hangouts on Air" backstage. In a nutshell, Hangouts on Air essentially enable you to broadcast a live hangout conversation with multiple participants on Google+, and then automatically transform the live stream into a YouTube video.
Last week, LumaPartners released the Gaming Lumascape, capturing the various components of this booming industry, which is estimated at $21 billion in revenue in 2011 according to this KMPG report. From console manufactures to game developer studios, physical distribution in Bestbuy to gaming portals, the gaming industry encompasses hundreds of startups and billions in funding.
The UK has everything it needs to build great startups. Talent, money and ideas, the trinity of startup success, are all present in the UK.London has the largest venture capital and private equity industries in Europe. The city’s cultural vibe attracts global talent, and the UK enjoys far more public sector support than the US. So what’s holding back the UK from growing successful startups?
This month’s trend continues to be the acquisition of mature Israeli high tech companies by multinationals. Avaya, EMC and VMWare are following the footsteps of Facebook, eBay, Cisco and HP with Israeli acquisitions that become R&D centers. Great for them, good for Israel.
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