Startupmania

Exclusive: Sequoia Invests in Modu Alumni’s Mintigo

By Raphael Fogel Tuesday February 9, 2010

Mintigo StartUpMania recently found out that Sequoia Capital has decided to make a venture capital investment in Mintigo, a start-up founded by three former employees of Dov Moran’s Modu.

Gili Raanan, Sequoia’s newest partner, will be the fund’s liaison with the company. This is his first venture capital investment with the fund.

As previously mentioned on StartUpMania, Mintigo, founded in 2009 by the three Modu alumni Tal Segalov, former VP of development at Modu; Jacob Shama, former VP of product; and Tzahi Weisfeld, former VP of marketing and strategy.

Minitgo has already received a primary venture capital investment from Zohar Gilon and Menachem Sternberg.

The company, operating out of Hod HaSharon an New York, is developing a product that will collect Marketing Intelligence, and is aimed at retail giants, financial institutions and communication service providers. Lately, the company has been taking on many additional executives, among them Ehud Ben-Reuven, a former senior-architect at Check Point, who will be Mintigo’s CTO. Also joining is Iddo Drori, former R&D manager at Gizmoz and PrimeSense and Mintigo’s new research manager.

Translated by Itai Rosenbaum

Ariel Efrati to Speak at SmartPilot General Assembly

By Raphael Fogel Thursday February 4, 2010

Ariel Efrati, Vice President - Head of Amdocs Venture Investments, Product M&A unit

I am pleased to announce that Ariel Efrati, VP and head of Amdocs Venture Investments, Product M&A unit and the man behind all global Amdocs interaction with start-up companies, will be speaking at SmartPilot’s general assembly.

Efrati’s lecture will be called “Start-up Selection Process to the Amdocs Open Invitation Program”, and he will share with the attending computing managers his vast experience in working with IT start-ups.

Immediately following Efrati’s lecture, the Venture Capital panel will begin. Participating will be some of the most prominent IT investors in Israel, and we will discuss the future direction of IT projects, as well as the relationship between an IT start-up and a large organization’s computing manager.

To all who are planning to attend – I highly recommend arriving at 8:00 am to the reception. As you can see, our agenda is packed, and if you wish to take some time to network, the time slot between 8:00 and 9:00 is prime.

Translated by Itai Rosenbaum

The XIV Effect – SmartPilot Panel feat. Leading Venture Capital Partners

I am pleased to announce that in the upcoming SmartPilot convention, I will moderate a panel that may prove to be quite interesting. The panel will consist of the top representatives of the Israeli venture capital industry, chiefly from those funds that invest in start-up companies.

On the panel will be Genesis’ Adi Shalev, Sequoia’s [...]

One Week to SmartPilot 1!

Most of our regular readers should be aware of SmartPilot by now, a special event hosted by People & Computers scheduled to take place February 8th. The event is co-sponsored by the start-up units of IBM, Oracle and HP.
For those who haven’t been checking out our reports – this is the first event of its [...]

Exclusive: Zohar Gilon and Menachem Sternberg Invest in Mintigo

StartupMania has been informed that Zohar Gilon and Menachem Sternberg have invested a venture capital fund investment in start-up Mintigo.

Mintigo was founded in 2009 by three Modu alumni: Tal Segalov (former VP of development at Modu), Jacob Shama (former VP of products) and Tzahi Weisfeld (former VP of marketing and strategy).

Mintigo, operating out [...]

Nuconomy Sold to LivePerson at a Bargain

Israeli start-up Nuconomy, which develops media website’s visitor’s activity monitoring systems, will probably be sold to internet company LivePerson.
This will make a trifecta of purchases LivePerson has made in Israel, following the purchase of HumanClick for $9 million and Kasamba for $40 million in 2007.
According to estimates, this is not a successful exit for the [...]