OurielOhayon

iPhone was born in Israel

As my colleague Daniel Cohen points out, the iPhone was a product and brand born in Israel and acquired later on by Cisco

More details here

Tags: iphone, israel, brand, cisco, apple

Really Cool Spiderman illusion

through the amazing blog Mighty Optical Illusions

Tags: illusion, spiderman, funny

What a Web2.0 office looks like

Good to have all those inspiring logos in front of me all day. For those interested i got this great poster from eBoy. I think they could make a similar one with Israeli web2.0 logos

Tags: office, web2.0, eboy, poster

iDrink was cool

Yesterday we had a cool meet up in Tel Aviv with about 50 israeli entrepreneurs/vc/bloggers that are passionnate about the internet. We called it iDrink, and given the first feedback i got, i think we ll get one organized again very soon. 

It’s good to see the internet becoming live and alive in israel. Below is a Flickr back with the tag idrink01

Tags: idrink, idrink01, israel, web2.0, internet

Israeli new web startups

I was searching for an equivalent of this logo board everywhere and i could not find it. So i decided to make one (precision: on flickr page those logos are clickable pointing to their respective websites).

I am often asked if there are so many israeli web startups as that. So instead of trying to explain, here is a list of new companies that are trying to change the way we surf the web. Ok this is nothing compared to the number of logos in the US or even in China. But nothing to be ashamed of if you compare it to France.

They all have in common to be israeli related (created in israels or founded by isrealis) and to have a public pr (there are many more coming, but i decided to focus on those online). I included a couple of blogs that i believe help this ecosystem growing.

Let me know if i missed something.

Is the next Google in that board? How many new companies will be there in 6 months? How many less? Will the focus be still on consumer services?

I will update this picture in 6 months and we will compare then.

If you like this one you can DIGG it

update: i added a few logos i missed.

 

Tags: israel, web2.0, startups, internet

iPiano, the piano by Apple

That would be boring. For more i “something” get here. Thank Orli

Tags: piano, iphone, apple

The Internet Lab inspires other initiatives

I read today that EverGreen, another israeli VC is creating a specific internet seed programm. I think this is great news for the israeli entrepreneurs that will find, beyond business angels and LgiLab other alternatives for financing their early stage programm

Evergreen is following the recent trend of Israeli venture capital funds' investing in Internet companies. The Jerusalem-based JVP fund has announced it will change its focus to media and content technologies; Gemini and Lightspeed have established an Internet laboratory that has made two investments

It is written in the article, LgiLab has been around now for more than 10 months, we made 2 investments and are on the way to make more. As far as i am concerned i believe it takes more than just putting some money and see how the company goes.

• It is important to spot, even at early stage, the right guys for the right idea. Too many me-toos or feature-company are around 
• be able to contribute to help your portfolio through your knowledge of the internet and through your network,
• bridge the gap with the US, which remains a key strategic market for most startups.

That’s what we are trying to do at LgiLab: this is not an easy job. This model starts to be popular among VCs. In the US Charles River launched a few month ago something similar with QuickStart and we know other israeli VCs are trying to put together a similar approach.

We see a lot of internet projects and i am very confident on the ability of this country to build world champions

MetaCafe is on the way, Gizmoz could be great, Jajah rocks. Let’s wait and see who will be here in one year now.

Tags: vc, israel, internet, lgilab, entrepreneur

Can't wait for David Lynch "Inland Empire"

New David Lynch movie “Inland Empire” has not arrived yet in Israel. But i can’t wait to see it. Critics say it is outstanding. The last Lynch movie “Mullohland Drive” is one of my top 10 favorites ever. Laura Dern that was already with Lynch in “Wild at Hear” is back on track.

I heard the movie is terribly disturbing and weird by amazing (not surprising…). Judge by the two trailers. More on “Inland Empire” here

 

 

Wikio raises 4 million euros + important precisions

Wikio (a company i was already private investor in) just announced a 4 million euros A round with LightSpeed Venture Partners (it is joined by Gemini Israel Funds as well). Full PR is here and more on Forbes

An important precision first: as i am involved in LightSpeed Gemini internet Lab, i want to precise this is not lab investment: we only invest in young israeli internet companies (up to 1 million dollars). This is a classic A round, managed by the funds mentionned above. I was asked though to join the board of Directors, which i have gladly accepted.

I am very happy of this announcement and Wikio has been doing not too bad since it has launched. The way is still long but they are cool things coming up.

Wikio is best defined as a personnalized news search engine managed by users (Think Digg+Technorati+Google News). Several local versions (German, Spanish, Italian and English) were recently aunched in Europe which will be primary focus of Wikio where there is no real alternative (well a little). It will reach soon 1 million active users, which is not bad since this was done with no marketing budget.

You will say i am biaised, but i can say i use Wikio everyday, mainly for intelligence reasons and for information/buzz monitoring on blogs and media sites. I can tell you that there are great things coming up and the business model will soon become much clearer.

Wikio is headed by Pierre Chappaz that was founder of Kelkoo and ex president of Yahoo Europe

More on Wikio here (btw they are hiring tech/dev profiles, so if you want to join you can write here rh@wikio.com (you don’t have to be French or even live in France)

Trailer: the Jerusalem Syndrome

Here is the trailer of the soon to come theather movie “The Jerusalem Syndrom” directed by Stephane Belaisch (we arrived in Israel nearly together) and Emmanuel Nakkach, two french guys living in Israel, that i know quite well.

 

If you don’t know what the Jerusalem syndrome is, read this

The Jerusalem syndrome is the name given to a group of mental phenomena involving the presence of either religiously themed obsessive ideas, delusions or other psychosis-like experiences, that are triggered by, or lead to, a visit to the city of Jerusalem. It is not endemic to one single religion or denomination, but has affected Jews and Christians of many different backgrounds.

A movie is like a startup: confidentiality is important for the creators until the release of the baby, but you can expect something funny coming up. Movie will be in French and Hebrew i believe