Author: OurCrowd

Q&A with Replay Technologies CEO and co-founder Oren Yogev

Q&A with Replay Technologies CEO and co-founder Oren Yogev

Oct 27, 2015 |

We went to watch Manchester United play during a lunch break […] During the match Aviv said he would like to see the game from the perspective of the ball, and we started making sketches and tossing around ideas.” — Oren Yogev, Ha’aretz Join OurCrowd for a live demo of Replay Technologies at the company offices in Tel Aviv on November 2nd, 2015, at 6:00PM — RSVP here. Oren Yogev, CEO and co-founder of Replay Technologies, OurCrowd’s latest investment opportunity, is reinventing the sports-viewing experience with Free-Dimensional Video. freeD is a video format that gives sports fans a dynamic 360 degree, 3D viewing experience of their favorite professional sporting events. A Technion-trained physicist and electro-optical engineer with a deep background in high-end military technologies, Oren has spent more than a decade working on laser guidance systems, drone manufacturing, and video recognition platforms. OurCrowd Investment Analyst Avi Lozowick recently interviewed Oren about Replay Technologies’ revolutionary free-dimensional video technology, and the transition of military technologies and innovations to commercial use and civilian applications in general. 3D-ing the playing field: Q&A with Oren Yogev Avi Lozowick: So how did Replay get...

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Doing Well While Doing Good: Impact investing in the Startup Nation

Doing Well While Doing Good: Impact investing in the Startup Nation

Aug 5, 2015 | , ,

Everyone dreams of making a difference in the world, but how many people have the means to do so? The rising trend of Impact Investing makes that worthy aspiration a very promising reality. By investing in companies offering products and services geared towards global impact, this niche sector combines social responsibility with financial returns. It’s Good to Invest in Good A Financial Times survey of 143 big investors indicates overall satisfaction with both financial and social returns on impact investments. Promisingly, these investors expressed intent to raise their investments by 16%. Another measurement of success is the Impact Investing Benchmark, a joint venture between Cambridge Associates and the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN). The IIB is a “comprehensive analysis of the financial performance of market rate private equity and venture capital impact investing funds,” which has proven instrumental in indicating the benefits of this field. An analysis of 68 Impact Investment funds between 1998–2010 indicated a 6.9% return to investors, with small funds returning 9.5% and Africa-focused funds returning 9.7%. This benchmark has even outperformed comparative conventional PI funds....

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The Rise of Real Estate Tech: How startups are transforming the housing industry

The Rise of Real Estate Tech: How startups are transforming the housing industry

Aug 2, 2015 |

Real estate and startups? For most people, there might not be an immediate connection between the two industries. Real estate has been around as an industry for hundreds, if not thousands of years, and is generally regarded as a multigenerational business. In New York City, for example, eight of the ten largest commercial landlords were founded before 1985, a testament to the enduring nature of real estate empires. In stark contrast, the startup world has come about within the last few decades, and many success stories, such as Facebook and Uber, have achieved unicorn status after only a few years. It would not be unreasonable to regard these two businesses as fundamentally separate from one another, but the last few years have shown that the reality is far different. In fact, there are a few unique features of real estate that have made it an ideal new frontier for the startup world. The most crucial characteristic of the real estate sector is its size. According to a 2014 Federal Reserve report, the United States residential and commercial real estate...

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Democratizing Innovation: The movement of problem solvers, misfit thinkers, & crazy dreamers

Democratizing Innovation: The movement of problem solvers, misfit thinkers, & crazy dreamers

Jul 12, 2015 | , ,

This guest post was written by Christian Cotichini, co-founder and CEO of HeroX, the world’s problem solver community. Christian has over 20 years of experience leading startup and high growth technology companies; he is an active angel investor and mentors startup entrepreneurs. Here we are, about two years into the HeroX experiment: what happens when we unleash the power of incentive challenges to everyone, anywhere, in the whole world? So far, I couldn’t be happier. I co-founded HeroX together with Peter Diamandis and Emily Fowler from the XPRIZE Foundation. Peter, of course, needs little introduction. Inspired by the original Orteig Prize, which took Charles Lindbergh across the Atlantic Ocean in 1927, Peter created the Ansari XPRIZE, a $10 million prize awarded to the first private reusable spacecraft to reach an altitude of 100 km, twice within two weeks. The prize was won in October 2004 by Scaled Composites, and the technology was licensed to create Virgin Galactic. Within the next few years, the general public will be able to get their astronaut wings. From this revolutionary beginning, the XPRIZE...

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Putting the ‘ad’ in venture: Why investors are excited about the AdTech market

Putting the ‘ad’ in venture: Why investors are excited about the AdTech market

Jul 9, 2015 | , ,

Have you ever been surprised to see an ad appear on your computer screen with exactly what you were looking for? Sometimes, it seems like the Internet can read our minds. It turns out that with the growing adtech industry, it can. Adtech platforms work to connect advertisers and consumers efficiently, by using sophisticated analytics to enable targeted advertising. The growing global adtech market is currently worth approximately $142 billion, with some estimates putting it at over $200 billion by 2018. Nearly 70% of these revenues come from mobile advertisement, which brings in about $100 million annually, according to emarketer. As the digital advertising industry expands, with revenues growing at 11% annually, it continues to make gains on the market share of traditional media outlets. But, what is adtech? When advertisers seek to place ads, they face the dual challenge of identifying their target audience and figuring out where to spend their money searching for it. Adtech companies solve these problems in one, by providing a means for advertisers to target the right people and know exactly where to...

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