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Roi Bar-Kat leads Intel Capital’s investing in Israel—and he’s helped back companies across AI, deep tech, cybersecurity, and more. In this conversation with Haggai Klorman Eraqi, Roi breaks down what consistently separates the startups that earn conviction (and outcomes) from the ones that don’t: founder quality, storytelling, and defensibility in an AI-accelerated world.

We go from Roi’s “non-traditional” path into venture to Intel Capital’s unusually strong model for combining financial discipline with long-term strategic value. Along the way, Roi shares a practical pitching framework, two lists every founder should write, why deep tech is getting even more compelling, and what AI could mean for the next wave of companies.

In this episode you’ll learn:

• Why Intel Capital shifted toward investing in “the best companies first”—and how that creates strategic value

• What makes a founder investable

• How AI is reshaping SaaS risk and boosting deep tech opportunity

• Why single-founder companies are harder to bet on

• What “physical AI” looks like and why it’s defensible

Check out the full episode notes, transcripts, and all links on Substack:

👉https://aggaeus.com/

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Some links may earn affiliate commissions. Offers, terms, and availability may change without notice.

Aggaeus content is for informational and educational purposes only and should not be considered legal, business, investment, or tax advice. You should conduct your own research and consult qualified professionals before making any decisions.

We may feature companies, products, or entities in which Aggaeus, its affiliates, or the episode participants have invested or may invest, or with which they have had, have, or may have a financial, professional, or other relationship.

Orly Shoavi has done what most founders only talk about: built through the “two years in the desert,” found a breakout wedge, and exited—then came back for round two with ClarityQ. In this episode, Orly (Co-Founder & CEO, ClarityQ) sits down with Haggai Klorman Eraqi to unpack the real founder journey: choosing a co-founder like a marriage, surviving the emotional whiplash of acquisition talks, and the moment SafeDK unlocked growth by shifting from “everyone loves it” to “everyone pays.”

Then we fast-forward to ClarityQ—the pain Orly felt firsthand at scale: teams drowning in data but blocked by bottlenecked analysts. She explains why GenAI made this problem solvable now, how ClarityQ builds trust (transparency, SQL visibility, human-in-the-loop), and what it means to move from prompt engineering to context engineering.

What you’ll learn:

• How Orly vetted a co-founder—and why alignment beats “perfectly different skill sets”
• The SafeDK wedge: monitoring SDKs → ad intelligence → explosive demand (and why it started as “just a feature”)
• The acquisition roller coaster: term sheet, sudden freeze, brutal uncertainty… then a better all-cash offer
• Why “waiting on analysts” slows decisions—and how ClarityQ helps teams move faster
• How to trust AI analytics: plans, steps, SQL, guardrails, and analyst verification workflows
• Orly’s advice to her younger self: start earlier

Check out the full episode notes, transcripts, and all links on Substack:

👉https://aggaeus.com/

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Some links may earn affiliate commissions. Offers, terms, and availability may change without notice.

Aggaeus content is for informational and educational purposes only and should not be considered legal, business, investment, or tax advice. You should conduct your own research and consult qualified professionals before making any decisions.

We may feature companies, products, or entities in which Aggaeus, its affiliates, or the author have invested or may invest, or with which they have had, have, or may have a financial, professional, or other relationship.

For 30+ years, Eugene Buff has been the behind-the-scenes “bridge” between breakthrough science and the companies that actually bring it to market—from university tech transfer offices drowning in inventions to global corporates hunting for the next edge. He’s a MD/PhD geneticist, a former Harvard Medical School researcher whose papers still get cited… and the rare operator who walked away from NIH funding to pursue commercialization full-time.

In this conversation with Haggai Klorman Eraqi, Eugene tells the story of how he realized the Nobel line was “too long,” and reinvented himself as an innovation strategist who helps organizations answer the hard question: Is this worth building—or should we kill it fast?

You’ll hear:

• Why you’re not commercializing inventions—you’re solving problems
• The surprising reason Eugene’s default approach is to try to kill the project
• What “open innovation” really means
• How strategic partnerships, licensing, sponsored research, and venture differ
• When getting a patent is the wrong move

If you’re building “deep tech,” spinning out IP, or trying to land a corporate partner without getting crushed by bureaucracy—this episode is for you.

Check out the full episode notes, transcripts, and all links on Substack:

👉 https://aggaeus.com/

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Some links may earn affiliate commissions. Offers, terms, and availability may change without notice.

Aggaeus content is for informational and educational purposes only and should not be considered legal, business, investment, or tax advice. You should conduct your own research and consult qualified professionals before making any decisions.

We may feature companies, products, or entities in which Aggaeus, its affiliates, or the author have invested or may invest, or with which they have had, have, or may have a financial, professional, or other relationship.

#OpenInnovation #DeepTech #TechTransfer #StartupStrategy #Innovation

If you’re building in AI and you think “human cognition” is just more training data, this episode will challenge you.

Assaf Horowitz is the Co-Founder & CEO of BrainVivo, a computational neuroscientist working at the edge of sci-fi and enterprise reality: scanning real brains and building “brain twins” — digital models that can predict how a specific expert or audience will feel, value, and decide inside a defined domain. Not a generic model. Not a persona. A measurable cognitive fingerprint.

Assaf watched his grandmother—Tova Horowitz, a Holocaust survivor and the smartest person in his world—fade away from Alzheimer’s. The pain wasn’t only losing her. It was watching a lifetime of judgment, perception, and problem-solving disappear with no way to preserve it. That question becomes the company: what if we could capture parts of a mind’s “operating system” — and make it usable?

Then it gets wild (and concrete). BrainVivo takes a 45–60 minute MRI session, maps your brain’s wiring (connectome) and activity (fMRI), feeds you controlled stimuli (images, sound, even smell/taste), and trains a “translator” between the world’s inputs and your brain’s internal response. The output is a brain twin that can be tested on new stimuli and used to predict intuition-level reactions.

Assaf shares two case studies that make this real:

• Cloning expertise: a Michelin-star chef who literally “hears” tomatoes (synesthesia). BrainVivo built a culinary brain twin and hit ~85% accuracy on the gist of his judgments across dozens of dishes—opening the door to scaling founder-level taste and consistency across locations.

• Predicting markets & behavior: a project with one of the world’s largest investment banks using digitized audience brains reacting to hourly news headlines, producing a high correlation with the market’s fear index (VIX).

• An experiment that beat a gaming company’s internal selection by choosing creatives that dominated click performance.

This is a founder conversation about the next AI frontier: not just smarter models, but more human ones.

In this episode

• What a “brain twin” is—and what it can (and can’t) capture today

• Why language is a crude interface for thought, and where LLMs flatten human depth

• How MRI + stimuli + an encoding/translation model becomes a usable cognitive agent

• Why Assaf believes “NeuroAI” is the next step after LLMs

• The ethics: data ownership, anonymization, and why your mind shouldn’t be scraped

Check out the full episode notes, transcripts, and all links on Substack:

👉 https://aggaeus.com/

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Some links may earn affiliate commissions. Offers, terms, and availability may change without notice

Aggaeus content is for informational and educational purposes only and should not be considered legal, business, investment, or tax advice. You should conduct your own research and consult qualified professionals before making any decisions.

We may feature companies, products, or entities in which Aggaeus, its affiliates, or the author have invested or may invest, or with which they have had, have, or may have a financial, professional, or other relationship.

#NeuroAI #DeepTech #Startups #Cognition #AI

In this episode, Daniel Green (Co-Founder & CTO) shares how Faye became one of the fastest-growing, most loved travel protection brands in the U.S.—by obsessing over one idea: solve it now.

Daniel breaks down the bigger lesson behind that moment: customers don’t want more alerts, dashboards, or “status updates.” They want outcomes. And Faye’s entire product philosophy—from app-first support to proactive flight tracking and instant claim access—was built around delivering calm, clarity, and solutions when travelers are emotional, exhausted, and stuck.

What makes this story even wilder? Faye’s first version launched in December 2019 as a predictive travel tool… and then COVID wiped the market overnight. That collapse forced the team to listen harder than ever—and what they heard again and again was simple: “I’d pay 10x if you’d just handle it.” That insight became the turning point.

In this conversation with Haggai Klorman Eraqi, you’ll hear:

• Why “love” is a serious KPI—even in insurance

• The product shift from information → real-time solutions

• What a modern travel protection experience looks like: app-first, proactive, instant virtual cards

• How Faye recruited senior talent from major industry players before they “needed” them

• Daniel’s practical framework for AI: embrace it, measure it, and don’t ship hallucinations into decisions

• The founder operating principle that keeps showing up: you don’t know if you don’t ask

If you care about product-market fit, customer trust, and building a brand people rally around—this one will stick with you.

Check out the full episode notes, transcripts, and all links on Substack:

👉 https://aggaeus.com/

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Some links may earn affiliate commissions. Offers, terms, and availability may change without notice.

Aggaeus content is for informational and educational purposes only and should not be considered legal, business, investment, or tax advice. You should conduct your own research and consult qualified professionals before making any decisions.

We may feature companies, products, or entities in which Aggaeus, its affiliates, or the author have invested or may invest, or with which they have had, have, or may have a financial, professional, or other relationship.

They said it couldn’t be done. So he built a robot and sent it up the side of a skyscraper.

No water. No chemicals. Just quiet, climbing machines—methodically wiping down glass and collecting inspection data that building owners have never had access to before. That’s what Ido Genosar and his team at Verobotics are doing. And yes, it looks like science fiction. But it’s already working on real buildings.

Ido’s path here? Let’s just say it didn’t start in a robotics lab. It started in the Tel Aviv nightlife scene—selling, hustling, navigating human behavior with the instincts of someone who’s learned to read a room better than most people read books. That same scrappy mindset—figuring things out by feel, not by formula—is what carried him through the hardest category in tech: real-world hardware.

In this episode, we go deep on:

• Why “physical AI” is having its moment—and why robotics is brutally different from software

• What it takes to scale a robot when every building is a different beast

• The hidden economics of facade maintenance (and why the labor shortage makes this inevitable)

• Japan as a robotics and real estate super-market—and why it’s still hard to crack

• How founders earn trust with customers when the bar for robots is higher than for humans

Check out the full episode notes, transcripts, and all links on Substack:

👉https://aggaeus.com/

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Some links may earn affiliate commissions. Offers, terms, and availability may change without notice.

Aggaeus content is for informational and educational purposes only and should not be considered legal, business, investment, or tax advice. You should conduct your own research and consult qualified professionals before making any decisions.

We may feature companies, products, or entities in which Aggaeus, its affiliates, or the author have invested or may invest, or with which they have had, have, or may have a financial, professional, or other relationship.

Daniel Cohen has spent 25 years investing across Israel’s tech ecosystem—Gemini, Viola, and now as Co-Founder & GP at Sticker Ventures, where he’s betting hard on one thing: the next wave of global consumer winners will come out of Israel.

In this episode, Daniel breaks down why Israeli founders have a unique edge in distribution, growth hacking, and performance-driven execution—and where they often stumble when it’s time to build a real global brand. You’ll hear the behind-the-scenes thinking of a specialist VC: what he funds, what he passes on fast, why retention beats revenue early, and how he evaluates founders who are still pre-launch but aiming big.

In this episode

• Why Daniel believes Israel can produce the next global B2C breakout

• The “Israeli advantage” in B2C marketing (and why it matters now more than ever)

• The biggest weakness: turning hacks into a durable brand

• Why Daniel prioritizes retention over revenue early on

• The fastest “no” signals—and what founders can do to come back stronger

• When performance marketing is a must… and what alternatives take too long to bet on

Check out the full episode notes, transcripts, and all links on Substack:

👉https://aggaeus.com/

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Disclaimer

Some links may earn affiliate commissions. Offers, terms, and availability may change without notice.

Aggaeus content is for informational and educational purposes only and should not be considered legal, business, investment, or tax advice. You should conduct your own research and consult qualified professionals before making any decisions.

We may feature companies, products, or entities in which Aggaeus, its affiliates, or the author have invested or may invest, or with which they have had, have, or may have a financial, professional, or other relationship.

Eyal Harel, CEO of BlueGreen Water Technologies, has spent 12 years going where most companies won’t: toxic, collapsing water bodies that communities rely on—and where “solutions” usually mean waiting for the next disaster. Eyal has seen how bad it gets up close: sewage flowing into lakes, drinking water pulled from the other side, and ecosystems turning into dead zones you can’t swim in, fish from, irrigate with, or even touch.

In our conversation, Eyal explains why harmful algal blooms are a water pandemic—and why the world still treats water like air: essential, invisible, and something nobody wants to pay for. He breaks down BlueGreen’s approach: surgically trigger a collapse of the toxic species, then let biodiversity rebuild the ecosystem fast.

Then it turns into the hard business reality: how do you build a company when the problem is enormous, but the market doesn’t exist? Eyal unpacks why investors struggle to price water innovation, why government budgets lag the crisis, and how BlueGreen is using carbon markets as a financing engine to scale water restoration—without relying on handouts.

What you’ll hear in this episode

• Why harmful algal blooms turn lakes and coasts into dead zones
• Why water insecurity becomes a humanitarian, economic, and geopolitical risk
• Why “nature rebounds” when given a chance
• Why Florida is spending aggressively on algal blooms
• The “problem exists, market doesn’t” trap—and how it breaks funding
• The carbon-credit pathway that can finance water cleanup at scale

Check out the full episode notes, transcripts, and all links on Substack:

👉https://aggaeus.com/

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💼 Sponsorships / Business: [email protected]

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Some links may earn affiliate commissions. Offers, terms, and availability may change without notice.

Aggaeus content is for informational and educational purposes only and should not be considered legal, business, investment, or tax advice. You should conduct your own research and consult qualified professionals before making any decisions.

We may feature companies, products, or entities in which Aggaeus, its affiliates, or the author have invested or may invest, or with which they have had, have, or may have a financial, professional, or other relationship.

#water #climate #sustainability #innovation #startup

Jerry Neumann is a Columbia University professor, author, and retired investor who was named one of the “100 Best Early-Stage Investors” and one of the “Most Important VCs in New York” by Business Insider. He co-wrote Founder vs Investor, runs the iconic blog Reaction Wheel, and has spent decades dissecting how startups really win—not in theory, but in the messy, unpredictable reality of markets, psychology, and human behavior.

This episode is a field guide for founders and investors who want to understand the only force that consistently produces breakout companies: UNCERTAINTY.

Jerry argues that when the future is knowable, incumbents win. When it’s unpredictable, founders have a shot—because uncertainty is the brief window where giants hesitate and entrepreneurs can sprint. But that window closes fast, and what you do inside it determines everything.

Haggai and Jerry go deep into:

• Why uncertainty—not risk—is the raw material of billion-dollar startups
• How Google, Facebook, Uber, and Datadog exploited moments incumbents couldn’t model

• The investor’s job: identify the unknowable, not the comfortable

• The founder’s job: make the idea bigger—big enough to scare you

• Why valuation math is a fantasy (and when walking backwards actually helps)

• The emotional violence of building: ego, failure, board politics, and being pushed out of your own company

• How to separate your identity from your startup—without losing your nerve

• AI as the final stage of the computing wave (and why most AI startups won’t capture the value)

• Why entrepreneurship is ultimately the purest expression of human agency

If you’re a founder wrestling with conviction, an investor sharpening your judgment, or someone who wants to understand how innovation actually moves societies—this conversation is for you.

Check out the full episode notes, transcripts, and all links on Substack:

👉 https://aggaeus.com

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Some links may earn affiliate commissions. Offers, terms, and availability may change without notice.

Aggaeus content is for informational and educational purposes only and should not be considered legal, business, investment, or tax advice. You should conduct your own research and consult qualified professionals before making any decisions.

We may feature companies, products, or entities in which Aggaeus, its affiliates, or the author have invested or may invest, or with which they have had, have, or may have a financial, professional, or other relationship.

Gilad Uziely isn’t just the CEO of Sequence—he’s one of the few founders who has lived through every chapter of the entrepreneurial cycle: raising millions, scaling fast, watching the unit economics turn against him, shutting off onboarding, facing 160 rejections, restructuring a cap table with 83 signatures… and then coming back with a product customers paid for before it even existed.

Today, Sequence is a breakout fintech used by small-business owners to orchestrate their financial lives across dozens of accounts. But before the 10× jump from $200K → $2M ARR, before Aleph VC and Emerge Ventures backed the reboot, and before the community formed organically—there was collapse, uncertainty, and a brutally honest founder question:

Are we resilient… or just insane?

Haggai and Gilad trace the journey with clarity, honesty, and a founder’s battle scars:

In This Episode

• The Ashes: shutting down Lance because each new customer shortened runway.

• Facing Reality: fraud, chargebacks, CAC inflation, and letting Excel tell the truth.

• The Pivot: anchoring on two principles—conviction and building only in a blue ocean.

• The Spark: discovering people wanted a “router for their money” so badly they paid $200 upfront for something that didn’t exist yet.

• The Road Through Startup Hell: six months, 83 signatures, and a term sheet pulled at dawn.

• New Investors: Aleph VC and Emerge Ventures stepping in with conviction.

• The Rebuild: finding the ICP, shifting messaging, and 10× ARR in 12 months.

• Craftsmanship Mode: from chopping wood to precision work across pricing, funnels, and value.

• The Principle: automate everything—because compounding only works if your habits do.

Check out the full Substack write-up:

⸻

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Some links may earn affiliate commissions. Offers, terms, and availability may change without notice.

Aggaeus content is for informational and educational purposes only and should not be considered legal, business, investment, or tax advice. You should conduct your own research and consult qualified professionals before making any decisions.

We may feature companies, products, or entities in which Aggaeus, its affiliates, or the author have invested or may invest, or with which they have had, have, or may have a financial, professional, or other relationship.