BizMe2, a new Israeli startup led by serial entrepreneur Yair Margolin, is looking to do to conferences what Wordpress did to blogging. I spoke with Yair last week to learn more about BizMe2 and plans for the future. The conversation was in Hebrew, so hopefully nothing got "lost in translation".
Battery Ventures held its first Entrepreneurship and Venture Creation Workshop in Tel Aviv on July 1 and 2 (see VC Café’s previous coverage of the workshop here). For Battery, the workshop served two main purposes: (1) to enable the firm to ‘give back’ to the Israeli entrepreneurial community amidst a challenging funding environment; and (2) to enable the firm’s investment professionals to meet and evaluate the entrepreneurial talent that is currently working on, or considering launching, early stage technology ventures in Israel.
Janvest, a new seed fund of $5 million backed by American angel investors and chaired by the former head of the Mossad (Danny Yatom), saw an opportunity to fill the gap by making offering US-based angel investors the opportunity to tap into the Israeli startup industry. To learn more, VC Cafe interviewed Brian Rosenzweig, one of the managing partners in the new fund and the former marketing director at 21Ventures.
Vodafone's venture capital arm made a strategic minority investment in Israeli startup Perfecto Mobile joining previous backers Carmel Ventures and Vertex Venture Capital who invested $7 million ten months ago. The sum of the round was undisclosed, but sources in the Israeli media estimate it at $4-5 million.
The Commercial Office at the Embassy of Israel in London and the Israel Export Institute have organized a New Media delegation, taking place on the first week of July. VC Café is privileged to support the event as the main media partner.
Online gambling giant 888 acquired the assets of American-Israeli casual game studio Mytopia from Real Dice, Mytopia's parent company. According to VentureBeat Games, the deal is estimated at $18 million, but could reach up to $48 million if Mytopia's assets hits certain revenue milestones by 2011.
Calpers, eVrit, Matomy, Fribiz, eType, Venture capital in Israel, Consumer confidence in Israel, Israeli incubators, venture capital performance
Check out this interesting video on the hidden truths behind what really motivates us at home and in the workplace. I loved the illustrations of RSAnimation to the original talk given by Dan Pink.
The proposal will enable investors in startups to receive tax write-offs on investments for high-tech companies who spend at least 70% of their salaries in Israel. The new law is part of broader reforms to boost the high-tech sector, led by Dr. Yuval Steinitz, Israel's minister of finance and his ministry's director general, Haim Shani
Jerusalem Venture Partners successfully raised $25 million for an annex fund to strengthen the portfolio companies in the Israel-focused JVP IV which closed in 2001. The aim of the fund is to support existing investments by "enhancing their business propositions" and preventing premature sales in a downturn.
