Author: OurCrowd

[OurCrowd CEO Jon Medved on CNBC TV18] Young Turks in conversation with Jonathan Medved on his journey

A serial entrepreneur and one of Israel’s leading high-tech venture capitalist, Jonathan Medved is the founder and CEO of OurCrowd. Being part of the founding team at several successful Israeli start-ups and as a venture capitalist and angel investor, over the last past two decades, Jonathan has invested in almost 200 start-up companies helping to bring 20 of them to values in excess of USD 100 million. Young Turks talks to Jonathan Medved about his journey here and the way forward. Watch the video on CNBC...

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[BriefCam in Wired] BriefCam’s algorithms can spot murderers and monitor bees

Briefcam has helped police find mass murderer Anders Breivik, spot the Boston marathon bombers and make sense of the Brussels attacks. How? By distilling hours of CCTV footage into minute-long clips. “We call it video-synopsis,” explains Dror Irani, Briefcam’s CEO. “We extract the motion over a stationary background, store it in a database and show it over a short time.” Read more on Wired...

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[MUV Interactive in The Jerusalem Post] 6 Israeli startups that want to change your everyday life

Sick of being glued to your phone, tablet or computer? Check out Bird. It’s a wearable device — also somewhat sushi-like in appearance — that fits on the tip of your finger and turns any surface into a touchscreen — tables, walls, you name it. Made by the startup MUV Interactive, it lets wearers move objects and click on icons simply by touching. In the video, for example, a child plays a video game that is projected on the walls of a living room. Read more on The Jerusalem Post...

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What Babe Ruth could teach about maximizing returns on your startup investments

It’s seems a waste to talk about startup investing without sharing some of the most awe-inspiring successes. We could start with Accel, the VC that invested $12.7 million in Facebook’s series A to buy 11% – back in 2005 – in a deal that was widely ridiculed for the valuation that Accel was willing to pay. Of course, Accel had the last laugh. In 2012, at IPO, Facebook’s market cap was over $100 billion, meaning that Accel eventually realized a return of 800 times its principal investment. Or else we could have a look at Bessemer Venture Partners’ $6 million series A for Intucell in 2011, which purchased them nearly half of the Israeli startup. Two years later – with no additional funding – Intucell was acquired by Cisco for nearly $500 million. Bessemer’s stake of about 50% returned over 25-30 times their principal investment. It goes without saying that these are the sorts of stories you generally don’t find outside of the VC space, in other asset classes – and it’s the magnetic pull that draws investors to startups. At...

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[ReWalk in TechCrunch] Rewalk Robotics is building a “soft exoskeleton” to rehabilitate stroke patients

The Boston-based company that was first to provide robotic legs to paralyzed veterans in the U.S., Rewalk Robotics Ltd., has a new product in development that you won’t see this week at CES. The device is a “soft exoskeleton,” designed to help people who have lower limb disability but who have not severed their spinal cord or otherwise become paraplegic. According to Rewalk CEO Larry Jasinski, “Many people who have had a stroke can stand up but cannot lift their feet well or cannot put their legs down or propel the leg on their own to walk. If you could help them move their legs, but not have to put a big structure around them, it would be a very attractive option.” Read more on TechCrunch...

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