[Israel Business Series] Finding and Investing in the next Unicorn with OurCrowd Founder, Jonathan Medved

Jonathan Medved is a serial entrepreneur and he is the co-founder and CEO of OurCrowd. In 2008, a New York Times’ publication named Jonathan as one of the top 10 most influential Americans who have impacted Israel.

OurCrowd is the world’s largest equity crowdfunding platform that has raised more than $1 billion from over 770 companies since its launch in 2013.

Jonathan was also the co-founder and CEO of Vringo, a leader in the mobile social and video applications area. Prior to founding Vringo, he was also the co-founder and General Partner of Israel Seed Partners with $262 million under management in four funds and has been an investor in 60 leading Israeli companies.

 

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

• Jonathan Medved talks about his pilgrimage to Israel
• Why Jonathan decided to settle in Israel to raise his family and build businesses
• Why Israeli Startups are receiving massive funding
• Jonathan explains the double bottom line that should be considered when deciding whether to invest in a company
• The companies that OurCrowd is involved in and what they do
• Who can invest through OurCrowd?
• How Jonathan’s father influenced him to become an entrepreneur, fundraiser, and investor
• Why Jonathan started OurCrowd

In this episode…

Today, startups aren’t going public early because they choose to build unicorns before opening themselves to become an IPO. While that’s a good thing for the founders and investors, it makes it almost impossible for the public to invest in startups early to maximize ROI because of the risk and massive investment required. But thanks to today’s guest, Jonathan Medved, it’s now possible for people to find and invest in the next unicorn through his company, OurCrowd.

Join Dr. Jeremy Weisz on this episode of Inspired Insider Podcast as he talks with OurCrowd Founder, Jonathan Medved, about finding and investing in the next unicorn. Tune in as they discuss Jonathan’s pilgrimage to Israel and his entrepreneurial journey that led to the founding of his equity crowdfunding platform, OurCrowd. They also discuss the startups in OurCrowd’s portfolio, how they decide which companies to invest in, and the type of people who can invest through their platform.

Resources Mentioned on this episode

• OurCrowd
• Jonathan Medved on LinkedIn

People Mentioned

• Barbara Corcoran on LinkedIn
• Marc Benioff on LinkedIn 
• Gal Salomon of CLEW Medical on LinkedIn
• Gal Salomon on Inspired Insider

Featured Companies 

• Zebra Medical
• Intuition Robotics
• Sight Diagnostics
• Ripple
• Beyond Meat
• Lemonade
• Tovala
• Bio Catch
• MigVax

 

 

Episode Transcript

Jeremy Weisz

Dr. Jeremy Weisz here, Founder of InspiredInsider.com where I talk with inspirational entrepreneurs and leaders This interview is part of the top Israel Business Leader series you should check out past guests include Luis Navone of Mobileeye when he talks about the mobile AI journey being acquired by Intel for $13.2 billion. Talk to Uri Adoni is the author of The Unstoppable Startup: Mastering Israel’s Secret Rules of Chutzpah if you don’t know Chutzpah look it up. He wanted to share the secrets to Israel’s incredible track record and, and Yuri was like, You must have Jonathan Medved on you must have Jonathan Medved on so today’s guest also check out Yossi Vardi. Who’s amazing as well. This episode before we get to introducing Today’s guest is brought to you by Rise25, which I co founded my business partner John Corcoran. And we help b2b businesses give to and connect to their dream 100 partnerships and clients basically we help your company run your podcast so generates ROI. You know, for me, Jon, the number one thing in my life is relationships. And I’m always looking to give to my best relationships and a podcast has allowed me to profile others thought leadership companies and really give to them. So if you have questions about podcasting in general, go to Rise25.com. And actually, Jon the the inspiration was more personal for me. My grandfather was a Holocaust survivor and his legacy lives on on my about page Inspired Insider because of a interview the whole customer nation did with him so I can watch it. My kids can watch it, my grandkids will be able to watch that interview. He’s not alive anymore, to tell that story to tell those stories, but it lives on so people can check that out as well. Today’s guest Jonathan Medved is a serial entrepreneur. 2008 New York Times publication was named one of the top 10 most influential Americans who have impacted Israel. He’s the co founder and founder CEO of OurCrowd, the world’s largest equity crowdfunding platform from accredited investors, which has raised more than $1 billion from over 770 companies since its launch in 2013. And prior to OurCrowd, Jonathan was the co founder and CEO of Vringo which went public and the co founder and general partner of Israel Seed Partners with $2262 million under management. Jon, thanks for joining me.

Jonathan Medved

It’s great to be here.

Jeremy Weisz

Yeah, I was watching the, the other day interview you and it was you and Barbara Corcoran, and onstage? Okay. And you

Jonathan Medved

That was a lot of fun. You know, who was actually hosting that interview is Betty Liu from Bloomberg. Yeah,

Jeremy Weisz

I know. Yeah. It was a great discussion. People should check it out. But you said something that struck me, which was I was a wild eyed hippie who moved Israel. Okay. So what was Jon like, then? What was going on in your life then when you went to when you made your pilgrimage to Israel?

Jonathan Medved

Well, I mean, I don’t think that I’ve actually changed that much. Maybe my hair is a little shorter. I’m wearing you know, rather than than rags, I’m wearing Hawaiian shirts. But I’m still a dreamer. You know, I, I grew up in Southern California. I was born in 55. So you know, peak of the baby boom, had a fairly idyllic childhood. My parents were both professionals. My mom was a biochemist, became a teacher. My dad was a solid state physicist who became an entrepreneur was actually a rocket scientist, surfer. Grew up in Brentwood. You know, came from a strong Jewish family where the, the grandparents had been observing both sides, but my parents sort of ran away from all that when they left the East Coast and came west and sort of broke the shackles of tradition in California. And in my neighborhood, you know, there are lots of Jews. And it, you know, was certainly no disadvantage to be Jewish. I had no anti semitism growing up, you know, in Pacific Palisades. And Brett with that simply, you know, it was D classes and pretty stupid actually, if you tried to do that. But I didn’t do much. Right. In other words, there wasn’t that much to do. I mean, we were considered sort of fanatics in the neighborhood because we actually had a Passover Seder at our house. There wasn’t a lot of observance, let’s say in the west side of LA. And I was very active in the anti war movement in the moratorium and worked for the United farmworkers and tutored kids in the ghetto. And I did a lot of sort of typical Jewish liberal stuff, which I enjoyed very much. And then went on to Berkeley, which was sort of a natural progression. And I wanted to go spend a summer after my freshman year somewhere else. And I didn’t really have the money. So I had to go back to my parents and ask nicely, would they cover, you know, some cost somewhere? And they looked at me and said, What are you thinking about? And I said, Well, probably Mexico or Spain, because I still spoke pretty well, Spanish. And it sounded cool and exotic. And they looked at me and said, Not a chance, the only place you’ll get a penny from us as I go to Israel. And you know, so the bottom line is I went and found my way to Israel, it was 1973 before the war, and it was this idyllic little country with 2 million people today, you know, almost 10 million in Israel, no startup nation, many of the same issues, but many different issues. And I really fell in love, I felt hard for the place. But then I came back to the States. And a week later, the war broke out. And that war was a traumatic experience for Israel and for the Jewish people. And on my campus, Berkeley, there were all these complete lunatics who were just a little bit ahead of their time yelling Death to the Jews. Okay, and that was the first time that I ever experienced that, you know, my people had to struggle. So that’s what hooked me. It was both the sort of up and excitement of being in Israel combined with the need to actually do something or do something. And I ended up going back to Israel every summer. During college, I taught myself Hebrew, became very active on the campus. And ultimately, in 1980 7 years after my first trip, I moved to Israel and haven’t looked back since that my wife now have four kids they have produced for me nine grandchildren. And I’ve been a sort of a frontline actor on the in the startup nation story.

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