16 Finalists, 3 Winners of the IsraelStartupNetwork Pitch Fest 2011

"Hi, Everyone,
Below you will find some basic information about the 16 finalists at our recent Pitch Fest, sponsored by Blumberg Capital, and hosted by Shiluvim. The first three are the winners, who were each awarded a very unique prize - every startup’s dream - a Due Diligence Process with Blumberg, which has already begun. The remaining 13 companies are listed in alphabetical order. Contact details have been provided. As you will see, these exciting startups cover a wide range of industries, reflecting the nature of our group. Over the coming weeks, we will be dedicating individual posts to each of these companies, as well as to many others among the 65 who applied to present.
All the best, and see you at our next event!
Arlene Marom"

Read here full story by Arlene Marom

Breakfast with Jeff Pulver (and friends) in Tel Aviv Harbor, Speedo Beach Bar

Some photos are added from today event to my first FACEBOOK album. It was just great! So many people come ...
Very nice day and warm business atmosphere.
A lots of fun... new and familiar faces... I made some new contacts...

Thanks Jeff, and looking forward to the next meeting.
It is so strange, somebody from USA have to come to Israel to organize so good event...

:-)
My best regards to all of you.
Fabian

August Meetup in ZOA - The Tel Aviv-Yafo Entrepreneur Meetup Group

How I promised, I publish today with light delay (work routine no left free time at all) short resume of the last meeting of "Tel-Aviv Entrepreneur Meetup Group". This time meeting took place in in ZOA House (founded by Zionist Organization of America) on 28/08/2008. Nice venue, but still small for meeting over 200 people. Sitting on the stairs was not comfortable at all, but was more than compensated by valuable lectures.

The both lectures was filmed and I will post here link to video files, so anybody who will like to refresh his memory or did not attended at all, will have pleasure to see them.

Excellent speeches, both - presentation by Ophir Cohen (Compucall’s CEO,- the sponsor of event) and “Free World Dialup” story by Jeff Pulver. I am not going to narrate here in blog who is Jeff Pulver, - but I like to share my emotion. I have wondered by outstanding speech of Jeff, - not only by “fascinating success life story”, but ability to splash out amount of interesting (at least for me) information in so short timeframe. Several times I catch him on glance to his hand watch… It was looking like he is going to finish, but he just has continue and continue… The warm atmosphere and the light comic style of speech left me sensation of intimate friends meeting.

And once again I catch myself on thinking that big things happen in big country, huge market and almost unlimited opportunities. I agree that here in Israel startups “grows up like mushrooms after rain”, but most of them oriented on American or World market.

Regarding pictures, this time I have forgot my camera at home, so all pictures taken by Nokia mobile phone, - therefore my apologies for pure quality and I post here just a few of them, full set you can find here.









Talking with Gady ( founder of the group) I have figured out that on coming meetings new interesting things going to happen - short presentations of new ventures/ideas for group members (some of them Investors) and live video conference with potential investors from USA. Sounds great, at least it is perfect chance to attend on “live startup workshop” and learn from others how to present, to see reaction of investors, questions they ask, accents they do and etc …

Once again – thanks to all group members and sponsor(s).
See you again on coming events.

Regards
Fabian

Knowing better people around you

While midnight web-surfing and scanning the "Tel Aviv-Yafo Entrepreneur Meetup Group" members profiles, I have found a lot of interesting people, blogs they manage, services some of them provides. Some contacts made for our new venture needs. With my pleasure I am going to share information, which may be interesting for local startup entrepreneurs. Of course it is hard to announce all of them in one single post, but I like to mention some of them, other may be disclosed in later posts.

So, via Boris Nadion's profile I have found that he is the member of small group of 3 (together with Vitaly Kushner and Michael Mazyar) software developers with an impressive list of tools and technologies, named Astrails.
– Tel-Aviv based web consultancy. I liked their last project – BitWine- beta release of web-service which helps

"find skilled professionals in various areas such as Technology, Nutrition, Travel, Relationship, Parenting etc, get to know them in an informal setting, and enjoy their consultation from the comfort of your home".

- service added to my blog "Cofee shops" list – startups and projects I found interesting.

In Liat Vardi's profile I have figured out women driven community for women entrepreneurs. She also has own blog, - informative resource, not only for women's… :-)
I recommend to visit "Venture Capitals" category of her blog with several interviews with representatives of some local VC funds.

- Exploring Carmel Ventures I have found a few coming events, one of them may be very attractive for entrepreneurs - Internet & Media StartUpScale on November 11, 2008, so update your calendars.


And the last for today announce about Garage Geeks, found via "Carmel Venture"- strongly recommended...

Physical & virtual space for multi-disciplinary creative people to meet, innovate and build non-commercial projects that would otherwise may not come to life.

Thats all for today, hope you liked it.

Salute,
Fabian