1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Amos Ben-Meir at Sand Hill Angels (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: What about your other syndicate group? Does it have the same kind of structure?

Amos Ben-Meir: OurCrowd is actually a venture firm. It was formed around 2013 by an experienced venture capitalist by the name of Jonathan Medved. They basically raised a fund of their own. They vet deals like a normal venture firm would. They built this investor platform where they take part of the allocation they get in a deal and make it available to their credit and investor network.

Their credit and investor network is global. There’re probably around 20,000 people. 50% of their investments are in Israeli companies. 50% are outside of Israel. When I say Israeli companies, it doesn’t have to be geographically in Israel. They have a global footprint. They invest in North America, Israel, Europe, India, and Southeast Asia.

Sramana Mitra: Interesting. That’s a very broad footprint from a geographic standpoint.

Amos Ben-Meir: As an example, they could get access to some really interesting deals. I invested in Hyperloop One through them. You have a choice of whether you want to invest in very early stage companies or later stage. I’d say they’re a good option for investors that are looking to diversify their portfolio across stages and sectors. They have quite a broad sector coverage.

Sramana Mitra: What about your personal sweet spot? If you were to lead a deal in either of these syndicates, what is the comfort zone in terms of investments?

Amos Ben-Meir: I don’t do many semiconductor deals. In my portfolio of startups, I have two semiconductor investments and they’re both software.

Sramana Mitra: Just for my own curiosity, what does software in the semiconductor industry mean?

Amos Ben-Meir: One of the companies is doing yield enhancement. They provide a suite of software tools to allow semiconductor companies to improve yield by significant amounts. That’s one. You can call that an EDA tool. In reality, the software is not specific to semiconductors, but that’s the first vertical that they chose.

Sramana Mitra: This is a next-generation PDF solution of some sort.

Amos Ben-Meir: I guess you can compare it to PDF in some sense. They’re broader in what they’re capable of doing.

Sramana Mitra: It’s not a semiconductor company at all. It’s more in the tools and optimization category.

Amos Ben-Meir: Yes. The other one is a company that’s doing generators for analog-type circuits but in the digital domain. They sell software and IT that allows companies to easily generate things like PLLs and DLLs and all sorts of other circuitry that has traditionally been in the domain of analog design. I generally stay away from semiconductor investments. The hey day for semiconductors was the 90’s and maybe the early 2000’s, but that’s the first vertical that they chose.

Sramana Mitra: This is a next-generation PDF solution of some sort.

Amos Ben-Meir: I guess you can compare it to PDF in some sense. They’re broader in what they’re capable of doing. I’m a generalist. I like seeing startups that are doing interesting technologies in various spaces. If it’s a business I understand or I can understand and if the founding team is really strong and has domain expertise, I’ll be interested.

I’ve done investments in biotech, digital healthcare, robotics, autonomous driving, cannabis, and sustainability startups that are doing sustainable agriculture and food, clean energy. I’ve done one space-related startup. I tend to focus more on enterprise. I also do look at consumer but they are very few.

This segment is part 3 in the series : 1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Amos Ben-Meir at Sand Hill Angels
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