jet lag (n.) A temporary disruption of bodily rhythms caused by high-speed travel across several time zones typically in a jet aircraft.
Isn’t Jet Lag wonderful? It’s been almost a week since I got back from Israel, but my hours are still turned around, causing me to fall asleep around 9pm and wake up at 5am. I have to say – it’s fun to wake up early. A young father from work told me that his 1 year old baby has the same schedule. The good news are highly productive mornings. The bad news are that I’m a bit behind the Israeli startup news this week.
Before picking up from where I left, I’d like to thank all of you that participated in the first Israeli Startup Roundtable in Tel Aviv. The event was a success and it truly was a pleasure meeting you in person. For those who couldn’t make it this time – I look forward to seeing you in the next Israel Startup Roundtable in August.
Here’s a short recap of what you missed (photos below):
A group of 30 readers of VC Cafe met in a coffee shop in the port of Tel Aviv. We started early on March 26th, since I assumed that people will have to rush back for work, but everyone stayed for nearly 3 hours. The goal was to network and further business by way of introductions, so we kept the agenda short and sweet. Since it’s a round table, it was important to give everyone the chance to speak and introduce themselves to the group, which consisted of entrepreneurs (both new and veterans), high tech executives, VCs/Investors (Greylock, L Capital, Bessemer and Clean Tech Israel), journalists and bloggers. There were also a couple of job seekers as well.
Each person described not only what he/she does, but also what he/she is looking for, which encouraged effective matchmaking in the open discussion portion of the roundtable. To the question of “what’s going to be big in Israel in the near future”, the group agreed that the answer is Clean Tech. Tilli from Greylock believes that there will be a rise in the number of clean tech startups coming out of Israel, as well as an improvement in quality. Jonathan Shapira of CleanTech Israel also mentioned that we’ll continue seeing a migration of talent from high tech to clean tech. The world needs good engineers.
Next month, I plan to have the US chapter of the Israeli Starup Roundtable, over breakfast, here in San Francisco. If you’d like to attend, support or help in any way, please contact me at eze [at] vccafe dot com. RSVP on the Facebook event page right now.
Also, a quick reminder that you’re invited to join over 500 members of VC Cafe in the Linkedin and Facebook Groups respectively. To apply, follow this link and include a short introduction of youself and your involvement in the startup or venture capital communities. We already have a diverse group of angel investors, entrepreneurs, recruiters, patent lawyers, VCs etc.
Stay tuned for details on the Silicon Valley Roundtable and future Israel events, but in the meanwhile, enjoy the photos from the event:
I'm a former general partner at google ventures, head of Google for Entrepreneurs in Europe and founding head of Campus London, Google's first physical hub for startups.
I'm also the founder of Techbikers, a non-profit bringing together the startup ecosystem on cycling challenges in support of Room to Read. Since inception in 2012 we've built 11 schools and 50 libraries in the developing world.
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