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November 06, 2007

Comments

Yaron Galai

Shai - thanks for the thoughtful post. Without commenting on the speculations part, I thought I'd just add a few thoughts about Israeli VC's re missed opportunities:

1) When we were doing our VC rounds (2000-2003), my feeling was that most VC's were looking hard for reasons why NOT to invest, rather than looking for reasons why they should invest.
When looking at deals that way, especially early stage companies, it's always easy to find reasons to avoid an investment. And with Quigo in particular it was probably very easy to find such reasons - we were in a terrible category (online advertising and search), we weren't 8200's, etc, etc.

When we started talking to VC's in the US, that difference became very noticeable - we met quite a few VC's who are looking for every reason they could dig up to make a deal happen.
I think that is something most VC's in Israel can definitely get better at.

2) While the companies you mention might have been a miss for the Israeli VC's, I agree with you and Ori that it's a relatively insignificant number compared to the # of successes backed by Israeli VC's. It's just one of those stories that journalists crave for (sells more newspapers, I guess), so it'll probably be amplified way beyond the exposure it really deserves.

3) Lastly - before everyone dismisses Quigo as a miss for Israeli investors - it's important to remember that the wonderful folks at GlenRock (www.grg.co.il) were early believers and backed us in the very early days.

Kfir Pravda

"If there is a lesson to be learned here it might be one of broadening our horizons"
amen for that.
People tend to forget that VC are investing in areas that are high risk - meaning, no one KNOWS what will work and what not (only the guys who own the startup BELIEVE that they have something grand in their hands). I hope that VCs will invest in new kinds of companies (media companies without technologies anyone?), but I agree that there are many failed and successful cases that shows the opposite of Guy's opinion.

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