Liat Aaronson, manager of the Herzliya Interdisciplinary Center's Zell Entrepreneurship Program, is leaving it to become a partner and investor in the Marker venture capital fund. Over the past decade, Aaronson closely accompanied more than a few courses in the Zell Program, considered one of the most successful in Israel. The program, which began in 2001, has been through 14 cycles. Aaronson joined a few cycles after the beginning, and the change she engineered, combined with the monetary spirit of American Jewish billionaire Sam Zell and the support of Interdisciplinary Center President Prof. Uriel Reichman, made possible a record of success that included five exits totaling over $120 million in recent years. Aaronson will remain chairperson of the program, which includes both scholarships and investments in some of the startups, and will continue to devote one day a week to the program and its companies.
"It has been an amazing journey, and I thank everyone who took part in this meaningful and important journey, which changed my life," Aaronson wrote the program's members and graduates. "My decade in the Zell Entrepreneurship Program was very meaningful for me, and I grew and developed together with the program."
Among the prominent exits by startups founded by Zell Program graduates were Wibiya, acquired in 2011 by Israeli company ConduIT for $45 million; LabPixies, acquired in 2010 by Google for $25 million; PicScout, acquired in 2011 by GettyImages for $20 million; and TheGiftsProject, acquired in 2011 by eBay for $10-20 million.
Aaronson's replacement in the Zell Program will be Moran Nir, who has managed the US accelerator program MassChallenge in Israel for the past 18 months. This very respected accelerator was founded in 2008, and has supported some 600 companies to date that have raised over $700 million in aggregate capital and posted over $400 million in revenue. Nir herself is a graduate of the Zell Program, in which she founded FunkKit, a maker of stickers for sneakers.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on August 5, 2015
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