Solution Nation

Today's Guest is Daniel "Danny" Cohen who is a General Partner at Viola Ventures, which is dedicated to enabling Israeli entrepreneurs to build global transformational technology companies.  

He has made invaluable contributions to Viola Ventures since 2013 and began his career as a developer and product manager at a few Israeli high-tech companies, including Commtouch and Scitex. He has a BA in computer science and psychology from Tel-Aviv University and an MBA from INSEAD.

Danny Cohen segments the business-to-consumer industry into niches such as consumer Internet, e-Commerce, direct-to-consumer, games and digital media. 

He provides key insights into scaling B2C companies, reserving options pools, setting founders’ and executives’ compensation, the trend towards short videos, and fraud in the reporting of subscriber counts. 

Danny also reveals some of the secrets as to why Israeli companies have had so much success in growing B2C companies. 

Today Danny Cohen introduces us to three fascinating portfolio companies — Lightricks, Worthy, and Faye. 

INcapital Ventures’s reputation as “bridge builders to the North American market” provides INcapital access to exclusive and attractive opportunities in Israel.

INcapital invests in early growth-stage technology companies and is industry agnostic.

Erez Lahav segments the enterprise software industry into niches such as machine learning, Internet of Things, marketing technology, and Big Data.

He provides key insights into determining the potential revenues that may be derived from distributors. 

Erez introduces us to three fascinating portfolio companies—Pente Networks, Anima and Cyrebro. 

Erez Lahav is a Principal at INcapital Ventures, which has offices in Toronto, Tel Aviv, and New York. 

Erez has over 15 years of experience in technology and entrepreneurship; he founded and led two start-ups from bootstrap to acquisition. Erez was also a software solution architect for Amdocs in Dallas, Texas.

Todays guest is Aaron Applbaum who is a Partner at MizMaa Ventures, which invests in early-stage companies. 

MizMaa Ventures assists its Israeli portfolio companies commercialized in the East and West. In fact, MizMaa is the portmanteau for the Hebrew words for East and West. MizMaa is also shepherding its companies to the Gulf and it has received investment from at least one Gulf sovereign wealth fund.  

Aaron Applbaum segments the cybersecurity industry and discusses the moats surrounding cybersecurity companies. He provides insight into the importance of marketing and developing common platform technologies in the cybersecurity space. 

Aaron introduces us to three fascinating portfolio companies—Autofleet, Orca and Hexight. 

This excellent podcast touches on three captivating topics—assessing SaaS companies, Israeli companies outsourcing programming to Eastern Europe, and venture debt.

Listeners will learn when SaaS companies should embrace the freemium model versus charging for multiple years of service upfront, when to (and when not to) charge on a per-seat basis, and the calculation of retention rates. 

Anton discusses various facets of venture debt such as maturities, costs, conversion, covenants, and collateral (or lack thereof).

This podcast includes a discussion of the pros and cons of Israeli SaaS companies programming software in Eastern Europe. Anton discusses some of his portfolio companies such as Comeet and Guesty. 

Anton Fedorov is a Partner at Flashpoint Venture Capital, which manages some $500 million through its offices in London, Tel Aviv, Riga, Warsaw, and Warsaw. 

With over 26 years of technology experience overall and a 15-year track-record of executive-level experience Gilbert Ohana 

delivers innovative, high risk and complex initiatives around IT Strategy and Enterprise Architecture, with a focus on Digital Transformation initiatives, to achieve business goals and competitive advantages.

On this podcast listeners will learn a great deal about Israeli innovation in the insurance sector. 

Among the issues discussed are capital requirements, regulatory regimes, the application of AI, protecting proprietary innovations and new lines such as homeowners association insurance and cyberinsurance.

Also discussed is the impact of Israeli military intelligence units on the Israeli entrepreneurial ecosystem. 

We will explore the early identification of the most promising candidates, mission critical challenges pursued in elite intelligence units, and the transfer of critical technologies for commercial use.

Stay tuned as Gilbert Ohana reveals some of Israel’s most promising insuretech companies. 

Among the companies mentioned are Hippo, Lemonade, Next Insurance and insurance.io.

Solution Nation Podcast with Levi Shapiro and Goel Jasper - Investing in Israeli Digital Health Companies

Topic: Investing in Israeli Digital Health Companies

Today's guests are Levi Shapiro and Go'el Jasper.

Topic: Investing in Israeli Digital Health Companies

Levi Shapiro is the founder of mHealth Israel, a non-profit community which currently consists of over 638 companies that supports Israel’s connected health and medtech community. 

And Goel Jasper is the Digital Health Innovation Group leader at FINN Partners.

Listeners will learn about how connected health companies navigate clinical trials, group purchasing organizations, and the reimbursement landscapes.

We discuss how these companies protect their secret sauce, the importance of predicates, and crucial tips on receiving capital from strategic investors. 

In this podcast, we will reveal how connected health companies impact malpractice risks, how to benefit from local regulations, and seek a trade-off in terms of efficiency and bedside manner.

Stay tuned as Levi Shapiro and Goel Jasper discuss some of Israel’s most promising digital health companies. Among the companies discussed are Biotax, Sweetch, and Theranica.

Baruch Lipner has helped build a charitable ecosystem in Israel as the Executive Director at Tmura

Tmura facilitates Israeli companies donating options to charitable organizations. 

For over 20 years, more than 800 Israeli companies have pledged options on their shares to Tmura. 

When these companies achieve exits, Tmura exercises its options and donates the proceeds to registered Israeli charities.

There are many Venture capital firms that encourage their portfolio companies to pledge options to Tmura. 

Being that many of Tmura’s supported charities are directed to the youth, more young people become coveted employees for Israel’s high-tech sector. 

Today Baruch continues to advise organizations to establish these types of charitable networks in other countries.

Exercise triggers, grant sizes, tag-along rights, cashless exercise, charity selections and much more are discussed in detail during this podcast.

Jonathan Glazer partners with outstanding early-stage HealthTech founding teams in segments ranging from digital health, to medical devices and diagnostics, to foodtech, agtech, biotech and life sciences

He is an enthusiastic lecturer, researcher, and goal-oriented business professional with proven abilities in influencing and engaging executives and key stakeholders.

About

◆ Partnering with outstanding early-stage HealthTech founding teams in segments ranging from digital health, to medical devices and diagnostics, to foodtech, agtech, biotech and life sciences

◆ Emergency Medicine Specialist and Healthcare Executive with clinical, operational and managerial experience in hospitals, pre-hospital, and military systems

◆ Combining interpersonal skills with diverse experience in the healthcare business ecosystem to provide strategic consulting for tech companies

◆ An enthusiastic lecturer, researcher, and goal-oriented business professional with proven abilities in influencing and engaging executives and key stakeholders

For over 2 decades Oded Hermoni has invested across different industries as a managing partner at J-Ventures ( Unicorns -Datarobot, Visby Medical, Omada, Veev), partner @Rhodium VC ( which invested in the Unicorns - Yotpo, Outbrain and Storedot), Coin Ventures ( Yotpo, Yieldmo) 

Odeds' mission goes beyond the check towards how to really bring value-add to the companies he's involved with or advises.

Most of his investments were in Silicon Valley, NYC, and Israel.

When Oded Hermoni invests he brings his experience and network, and most of all, he tries to see how he can bring added value. 

*Please remember that all content provided on the Solution Nation podcasts and website is for educational purposes only. 

Craig Weiss is the Managing Partner of Flagstaff Ventures, an early-stage, consumer-focused venture capital firm, headquartered in Arizona.

Craig brings an entrepreneur-focused perspective to the venture capital field as one of the few institutional investors to have both built a unicorn as a CEO and also identified and invested in an early-stage startup that has achieved unicorn status.