Author: OurCrowd

OurCrowd’s portfolio company Crosswise featured in Calcalist

Jan 19, 2014 | ,

OurCrowd’s portfolio company Crosswise was featured in Israel’s leading financial publication, Calcalist.       Excerpt from the article (translated from Hebrew): “Hong-Kong mogul Li Ka-shing through Horizon Ventures participated in a $2 million funding round in Israeli startup Crosswise, which operates in the online advertising field. The funding round was led by Israeli Giza Ventures. Additional investors participating int he funding round include OurCrowd and other private investors, such as Moshe Lichtman, the previous President of Microsoft’s Israel R&D Center.” Crosswise raised $525,000 from OurCrowd investors in 2013. Read more on Calcalist (Hebrew)...

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OurCrowd’s EasySocialShop was featured in leading French magazine, L’Express

Jan 16, 2014 | ,

OurCrowd’s portfolio company Easy Social Shop‘s founders Nissim Lehyani and Ofir Tahor have been featured on the first page of L’Express’ coverage of the Israeli startup scene. L’Express is a leading and influential French weekly news magazine. Rothschild Boulevard in Tel Aviv is not only renowned for its Bauhaus buildings. It became the haunt of more than 700 startups and 1,000 high-tech companies – which are concentrated there despite the high rents. “We are here in the heart of the ecosystem,” enthuses Lehyani Nissim, 31, creator of EasySocialShop, a boutique concept on Facebook. “You see this building?” asks Nissim Lehyani on the terrace of his tiny office. “Within five years, we will occupy the top three stories.”       Read the full article in French here: La  Toile de David – EasySocialShop (PDF...

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The investor’s guide to the Israeli enterprise software market

The investor’s guide to the Israeli enterprise software market

Jan 14, 2014 | ,

Lost in some of the excitement around Israeli startups’ push into consumer technology is the country’s history in the software market. A key part of Israel’s success story — part of the economic fabric of the Startup Nation — is the enterprise software market. Established in the 1980s, Comverse, Amdocs, and Mercury Interactive were considered top-tier competition (especially in niche markets) to multinationals like SAP and Oracle. While their prominence may have faded somewhat, they did seed a whole ecosystem of enterprise-focused software startups that began in the 1990s and continues through today. That hasn’t been lost on companies like Oracle, which has purchased firms like Primavera, Demantra, and Convergin over the past decade. The following is a presentation given by OurCrowd‘s founder, Jon Medved, addressing the historical roots of the enterprise software industry in Israel, its enablers, and where the market may head in the near future.   The Investor’s Guide to the Israel Enterprise Software Industry from OurCrowd   Special thanks to OC’s Prescott Watson in the preparation of these materials!...

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The Jerusalem startup scene has never been better!

The Jerusalem startup scene has never been better!

Jan 5, 2014 | , , ,

Venture capital investors, angel funds, accelerator, these concepts are familiar today to every high-tech entrepreneur in Jerusalem, and there are quite a few of those. During the last week of December, Jerusalem’s Lander Institute hosted a gathering othat brought together around 100 Jerusalemite entrepreneurs and prominent investors operating in Israel. Among those present were Shahar Tzafrir of Magma Venture Partners (a primary investor in Waze), Evelyn Rubin of Jerusalem-based equity crowdfunding platform OurCrowd, Ben Wiener who recently launched a Jumpspeed, a micro-fund for early-stage startups in Jerusalem, Jerusalemite angel investor Reuven Ulmansky and Aviram Zolti, Israel’s Vice Chief Scientist. A last minute addition to this group was Zohar Levkovitz, an entrepreneur turned investor who recently sold his ads company Amobee to Singaporian SingTel for almost $350 million. This wasn’t the only event held in Jerusalem that week. One of the participants was complaining that the previous night there were 2 events appealing to the same target audience. This example illustrates the type of “difficulties” a Jerusalem entrepreneur faces these days. Over the past year and half something good and refreshing has been happening in...

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Meet the Israeli startups on TNW’s list of the best iOS apps launched in 2013

Meet the Israeli startups on TNW’s list of the best iOS apps launched in 2013

Dec 29, 2013 | , ,

Back in October during Apple’s media event in San Francisco, it was revealed that Apple’s iOS App Store lists more than one million apps and has generated $13 billion in revenue for developers since it was first introduced. The Next Web, a leading website for international tech news, put together a list of the more notable apps and services to launch for Apple’s mobile platform in 2013. Out of the 89 apps listed by TNW, 8 of them are Israeli products fresh out of the Startup Nation. Besides being very useful additions to anyone’s collection, these smart calendars, budgeting tools and funky cameras represent the crème de la crème of Israeli innovation. Here is the Made-in-Israel edition of the TNW’s list of the best iOS apps launched in 2013: Takes We were very excited to see OurCrowd’s portfolio company Takes on the list! Takes is a cool app that lets you capture video simply by taking photos. Every time you snap a picture, Takes is capturing video, too. It effectively provides a brand new way for you to share your experiences by simply doing what you already...

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