10 TEL AVIV

Tel Aviv ain’t no Jerusalem—while Jerusalem may be the religious capital of Israel, Tel Aviv is the tech capital. The young beach town is full of young professionals who come from mandatory military training and has the higest density of startups in the world. Startups here avoid the “Snaptrap” or “Instafad” of focusing on social networking or other saturated, productivity-wasting industries—Israel’s rocky relationship with its neighbors leads to a focus on more impactful industries, like sustainability and security. And while Americans may have gotten used to the overly fake startup networking events, people are far more blunt and direct in Tel Aviv. With a history of innovation in Israel along with the highly skilled workforce in Tel Aviv, you’ll know why citizens of Tel Aviv believe anything is possible.

VENTURE ACTIVITY Q4’15 - Q3’16

VC FUNDING: $983.9M

DEALS: 143

EXITS: 22

5 YEAR YoY FUNDING GROWTH: 60.5%

5 YEAR YoY DEAL GROWTH: 44.1%

Source: CB Insights

Military service is mandatory for all Israelis, meaning every entrepreneur in the making has been through service, benefiting from the discipline, network, and training the military provides.

DAN TOLKOWSKY

Cofounder of the first Israeli-based venture capital fund, the Athena Fund

IDF: Commander of the Israeli Air Force

BARAK EILAM

CEO of NICE Systems, big Israeli company focused on data security and surveillance

IDF: Member of Unit 8200, an elite Israeli intelligence organization

CHEMI PERES

Cofounder of Pitango, Israel’s leading venture capital firm with $1.6 billion under management

IDF: Pilot in the Israeli Air Force for ten years

URI LEVINE

Cofounder of Waze, mapping company that was sold to Google for $1 billion

IDF: Developer, served five years as opposed to the required three

Citizens of Tel Aviv are renowned for their BS detector—here’s who you shouldn’t be when networking in the city.

The Constant Marketer Getting your startup idea out there is great, but talking about your startup when it’s completely unrelated is a big no-no. Ex. Q: Where are you from? A: My startup is actually transforming iPhones into Sesame Street virtual reality holograms.

The Name Dropper The most common and dreadful sin among young entrepreneurs, and the sure sign of a wanna-be. So your cousin’s girlfriend’s best friend’s aunt twice removed met Steve Jobs in an elevator? Cool story. The true masters of networking never mention who they know—they talk about what they’ve done.

The VC Hunter Everyone’s met that one entrepreneur at a networking event who takes a look at the company on your name tag, smirks, and goes elsewhere. Don’t be that guy. The real value of networking is sharing ideas with people and forming connections with them—only chasing company names will get you nowhere.

The map shows the distribution of all these tech establishments throughout Israel.

Source: Mapped in Israel.

The Israeli Startup Map

As of late August 2015, Israel’s tech scene has the following:

1472 STARTUPS

229 SERVICES

84 INVESTORS

68 R&D CENTERS

61 ACCELERATORS

56 TECH COMMUNITIES

32 COWORKING SPACES

TRY EatWith

Israeli born founders Shemer Schwarz and Guy Michlin started EatWith, a company marketed as the “Airbnb for food.” EatWith allows users to eat home-cooked meals around the world at people’s houses—just don’t make these mistakes.

Don’t Bring Up the Palestine Conflict

Having just gotten to Tel Aviv, you may be thinking about all the Israel stuff you’ve heard about in the news, namely the Israel-Palestine conflict. But no matter whose side you pick, someone may hit you over the head with some challah in a heated debate.

Be Kosher with Kosher Foods

In America, “kosher” is an adjective usually attached to something the user deems cool, but in Israel, “kosher” refers to food following Jewish law and customs, which includes only eating animals that have cloven hooves and chew cud. Therefore, don’t bring any camel or rock badger meat to someone’s house. No pigs either.

Don’t Overgram It

We get it. The food looks good. You want to remember it. You want to show people. We understand. But stop, put your phone in between two baklavas, and talk to people.

THE STARTUP NATION

For a country of 8.5 million people, Israel is known as “Startup Nation” for a reason. The following is the venture and exit activity during just one week in January 2015. Source: Geektime

FUNDING

• $28M Ravello Systems

• $20M AppsFlyer

• $20M EarlySense

• $18M BlueVine

• $15M TayKey

• $12M Rounds

• $8M Vaultive

• $8M RealMatch

• $6M Visualead

• $7M insert

ACQUISITIONS

• $370M Annapurna Labs acquired by Amazon

• $150M CloudOn acquired by Dropbox

• $50M Equivio acquired by Microsoft

• $200M Red Bend Software acquired by Harman

TOTALS

• $140M in funding

• $770M in acquisitions

• $910M worth of deals in one week

GSV’S Words to Win By

“There is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come”

—VICTOR HUGO

“The best way to predict the future is to create it.”

—ABRAHAM LINCOLN

“Risk more than people think is safe. Dream more than people think is practical.”

—HOWARD SCHULTZ

“It doesn’t matter who you are, where you come from. The ability to triumph begins with you—always.”

—OPRAH

“The time is always right to do what is right.”

MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.

“The mind is everything. What you think you become.”

—BUDDHA

“Move fast and break things. Unless you are breaking stuff, you are not moving fast enough.”

—MARK ZUCKERBERG

“When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favor.”

—ELON MUSK

“Imagination is more important than knowledge”

—ALBERT EINSTEIN

“Screw it, let’s do it!”

—RICHARD BRANSON

“If everything seems under control, you aren’t going fast enough.”

—MARIO ANDRETTI

“Good artists copy. Great artists steal.”

—PICASSO

“Anything is possible if you’ve got enough nerve. “

—JK ROWLING

“Courage is being scared to death but saddling up anyways.”

—JOHN WANYE

“The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it”

—MICHELANGELO

“Impossible is not a fact, it’s an opinion.”

—MOHAMMAD ALI

“Vision without execution is hallucination.”

—THOMAS EDISON

“You may say I’m a dreamer but I’m not the only one.”

—JOHN LENNON

“Why join the navy when you can be a pirate?”

—STEVE JOBS

“Where there is no vision people perish.”

—PROVERBS

“Never give up. Today is hard, tomorrow will be worse, but the day after tomorrow will be sunshine.”

—JACK MA

“Good coaches win. Great coaches cover.”

—BILL CAMPBELL

10

TEL AVIV

VENTURE ACTIVITY Q4’15 - Q3’16

THE TOP

ANGELS

VCs

ACCELERATORS

ENTREPRENEURSHIP EVENTS

Q4’15 - Q3’16 TOP FUNDING ROUNDS

Israel’s Top Accelerator: ISRAEL DEFENSE FORCES

TEL AVIV AT A GLANCE

Power Breakfast

Coffee Shops to Start Up In

Best Bar

Local Beer

Best Quick Food

“Must be At” Local Events

The Wantrepreneur

The Israeli Startup Map

TRY EatWith

THE STARTUP NATION

TIP

GSV’S Words to Win By