It was hard to miss the Israeli contingent at last week's Techcrunch 50 2008 conference in San Francisco. Seven of the 52 Internet start-ups presenting their wares to venture capitalists were Israeli, as were at least ten of the 100 start-ups at the DemoPit, that wowed the judges and 1,000 visitors. At times, there were so many Israeli entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and visitors that the three-day conference seemed to be taking place in Herzliya Pituah.
Although the winning prize was not won by an Israeli, but by Yammer Inc., Israeli start-up iamnews, founded by Nir Ofir, won the People's Choice Award. Ofir was the 52 presenter at the conference.
Presenting iamnews, Techcrunch founder Michael Arrington said, "This is the seventh Israeli company to come on stage, and it is another company that raised capital from Yossi Vardi."
"Israel rocks," Arrington told "Globes" a few hours before iamnews won the People's Choice Award. "There are very few concentrations of innovation in the world, and Israel is one of them."
Arrington is a strong supporter of Vardi; supporter would be an understatement. "You should build a statue of Yossi Vardi in Tel Aviv," he says.
Blogger Robert Scoble also praised Israel in a conversation with "Globes". "It's the only place in the world where I felt that I was in Silicon Valley. I was in Israel four months ago. When I visited China or India, everyone told me, 'I want to work for Microsoft or Google.' In Israel, everyone told me, 'I want to open my own company.'"
"Globes": How do you account for this?
Scoble: "In the US, we import geeks, but Israel is able to keep its geeks. Israel has some kind of tie to the soil, which America lacks. If I were offered a good job somewhere else, I'd go. That doesn’t always happen in Israel."
How does it happen that so many Israeli companies at the exhibition space and on the stage? What happened in the past year that changed the picture? Some entrepreneurs talk about the growth and maturity of Israeli companies. Prepaid credit card company Payoneer CEO Tomer Bar Zeev said, "There are really a lot Israelis here."
Kaltura CEO Ron Yekutiel said, "This year, everything is bigger and the market will be broader. Video creation and management open source developer Kaltura won the People's Choice Award at the Techcrunch40 conference last year.
1,200 companies applied to present at the Techcrunch50. One of Techcrunch's criteria for presenting is the official launch of the start-up's product at the conference, without anyone knowing in advance what it is. Playce founder Carmel Gerber said, "We had to conceal what we were going to present from our outside developers." Playce Ltd., which is developing 3D virtual games, was one of this year's Techcrunch50.
Web portal for children aged 7-15 Tweegee Ltd. was another Techcrunch50 start-up. Tweegee CEO Shay Bloch said, "We postponed our launch because of the conference." The company is launching its US operations in the wake of the conference and will launch a Russian-language portal next week.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on September 14, 2008
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