Israeltech

If you want to know where global investors get Israel wrong, ask someone who has built billion-dollar businesses and now backs founders for a living. Yevgeny Gelfand is a serial innovator and business builder who spent 15 years in financial services and SaaS, launching and operating new businesses that either exited through IPO or grew privately into multi-billion-dollar operations. After that run...

When it comes to startup success, Israelis don’t just build - they connect. In this episode, Lirone Glikman, CEO of the Human Factor and author of The Super Connectors Playbook, joins Yoel Israel to unpack what really makes the Israeli tech ecosystem thrive and why connection is the biggest competitive edge. From cultural clashes in Tokyo to the empathy that drives founders to help competitors, Li...

In this episode of IsraelTech, Yoel Israel sits down with Dror Globerman, journalist, media personality, and founder of Jumpstart AI School, for one of the deepest and most provocative conversations yet. They dive into: - How algorithms reward hate and tribalism - Why human nature, not technology, is the real problem - The death of legacy media and rise of individual trust - The danger of unregula...

NVIDIA is the world’s most innovative company. Israel is the world’s most creative nation. What happens when the two come together? At Reichman University’s first-ever ScaleUp Nation Conference, Yoel had the privilege of being invited to interview Nati Amsterdam, Senior Country Director of NVIDIA Israel, on stage in Hebrew. They discussed how Israel became one of NVIDIA’s most strategic global hub...

What if the future of autonomous cars isn’t powered by cameras or LiDAR, but by radar? In this episode, Kobi Marenko, CEO and Co-founder of Arbe, joins Yoel Israel to unpack how radar-on-chip technology could reshape the future of autonomous driving and why the giants of silicon may be standing in the way of true innovation. We explore: - How radar sees what cameras can’t, and why that matters for...

Everyone talks about hackers. Almost no one talks about the access decisions that let them in. In this episode of IsraelTech, Raz Rotenberg, Co-founder & CEO of Fabrix, joins Yoel Israel to explain how Fabrix is building AI agents that finally understand identity - bringing reasoning, context, and trust into cybersecurity. We cover: - Why identity is cybersecurity’s blind spot - How Fabrix’s A...

Quantum computers the size of football fields? How about something that actually fits in your office? In this episode, Oded Melamed, CEO of Quantum Source and former co-founder of Altair (acquired by Sony), joins Yoel Israel to explain how his team is building scalable photonic qubit technology that could shrink massive machines into something that fits inside a standard server room...

Everyone talks about Israel’s cybersecurity and defense tech, but what about consumer brands? Danny Cohen, Co-Founder & General Partner at Sticker Ventures and former GP at Viola Ventures, joins Yoel Israel to explain why he launched Israel’s first VC dedicated to B2C. From mattresses to gaming apps, Cohen argues that Israel’s next global hits won’t come from cyber, but from consumer creativit...

Iran tried to destroy them. AI21 Labs kept building. Ori Goshen, Co-CEO of AI21 Labs, joins IsraelTech to talk about AI, war, and the future of Israel’s place in the global AI race. In this interview, you’ll see: - How AI21 Labs kept building even after a missile strike hit near their office - Why Ori says “AI doomsday” fears are overblown and what the real threats are - How Israel can partner wit...

DNA Is the New Assembly Line From insulin to spider silk, synthetic biology is already reshaping what we eat, wear, and use - and you probably don’t even know it. The next leap? Taking biomanufacturing beyond pharma and into everything from sustainable food to lab-grown materials. That’s where MNDL Bio comes in, solving the biggest bottleneck: making DNA engineering faster, smarter, and cheaper. W...

Most people think cyber is Israel’s crown jewel, but is FinTech quietly winning the long game? Adi Levanon is the founder of Selah Ventures and one of the few solo GPs shaking up Israel’s VC scene. In this episode, she shares why FinTech - not cyber - might be Israel’s best-kept secret, how she wrote her first $500K check without flinching, and what the rise of FinTech defense means for the global...

JUST DROPPED: An incredible conversation with Nina Raab of LionRun Consulting about the REAL secrets of startup fundraising! Nina’s story? She made Aliyah 1.5 years ago and built a 10-person consultancy from Tel Aviv to NYC. Now she helps seed to Series B startups raise serious cash - and 40% of her clients are Israeli. 🇮🇱 What blew us away: - Most founders waste time pitching to the wrong VCs - Y...

No pilots? No GPS? No problem! Xtend CEO Aviv Shapira is building the most advanced AI drone systems in the world - and they're already being used in Gaza, Lebanon, and Ukraine. We sat down with Aviv at Xtend HQ to break down: 🧠 How AI pilots can fly swarms of drones autonomously 🏙️ Why GPS-denied environments are no longer a limitation 🛰️ What really happened during the drone strike deep inside...

AI Can Write Code. But It Can’t Optimize It. That blindspot? Meni Shmueli built DataFlint to fix it. After years in Unit 81 and deep in the trenches of AI and big data, Meni saw the problem firsthand: GitHub Copilot and friends can generate code, but when it hits real-world scale - production clusters, terabytes of data, performance bottlenecks - they break. DataFlint gives AI the context it’s mis...

What happens when you mix a CISO’s vigilance with a VC’s capital? You get OurCrowd. Yuval Illuz didn’t come up through the VC boys’ club. He built his career defending critical infrastructure, leading global cyber teams, and mastering AI long before it was trending. Now? He’s backing startups that win wars - economic and literal. 💥 Israel’s most active VC. 🛰️ Betting big on defense tech, SLMs, an...

Why do so many talented immigrants leave Israel within just a few years? Abbey Onn, Executive Director of Nevo Network, joins IsraelTech to expose a challenge most don’t talk about: one in three English-speaking Olim leave Israel within three years and it’s often because they can’t find their footing professionally. Nevo is changing that by creating long-term, high-impact support systems for immig...

What happens when AI gets hacked and it controls your car, your city, your reality? Esti Peshin, one of the top cyber minds in Israel and the General Manager of IAI’s Cyber Division, isn’t here to predict the future, she is here to build it and protect it. In this exclusive IsraelTech interview with Yoel Israel, Esti talks about the intersection of AI and cyber defense, the growing threats to conn...

Is Tesla bluffing about full self-driving? Omer Keilaf, co-founder and CEO of Innoviz, joins IsraelTech to explain why LIDAR - not cameras - is the key to safe autonomy. ith over 20 years of experience building life-changing technologies and a background in Israel’s elite Unit 81, Omer isn’t only shaping the future, he’s already living in it. From military-grade hardware to software-defined vehicl...

Meet Lital Leshem, the battlefield-tested investor reshaping Israel’s defense tech future. From Gaza to global VC, Lital is now leading a $150M fund investing in unmanned systems, AI, sensors, and satellite comms — and she’s not shy about what’s broken in our defense ecosystem or who’s to blame. 🎙️ In this punchy, no-holds-barred sit-down with Yoel Israel, she talks: Why Europe’s defense panic is...

What if the world’s harshest climates became the next frontier for solving humanity’s biggest challenges? In this episode of IsraelTech, Yoel Israel sits down with Sivan Cohen Shachari, VP of Innovation at The DeserTech & Climate Innovation Center, to explore how Israel’s Negev desert is becoming a global proving ground for climate resilience and sustainable tech. From her early work in educat...

Stop choosing. Just do everything you want. In this episode of IsraelTech, host Yoel Israel sits down with the legendary Rona Segev, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at TLV Partners - one of Israel’s most influential VCs backing the country’s most promising deep tech and AI-driven startups. Rona shares her unfiltered thoughts on: 🚀 What she really looks for in a first-check investment (hint: it’s...

Is Israel Missing the AI Train - Or Secretly Building the Future? We sat down with Inna Tokarev Sela, founder and CEO of illumex.ai, in the heart of Tel Aviv to talk about why most enterprise decisions still aren’t based on data - and how that’s finally about to change. From building her career at SAP and Sisense to launching illumex and pioneering the “Generative Semantic Fabric,” Inna shares wha...

🇮🇱 Legacy, Leadership & the Future of Israeli Innovation | Chemi Peres on IsraelTech What does it mean to carry the Peres name in today’s Israel - and what does the future of defense, venture capital, and peacebuilding look like through the eyes of someone shaping all three? In this rare sit-down, Chemi Peres - Managing Partner & Co-Founder of Pitango Venture Capital, Chairman of the Peres...

ISRAELI TECH’S SECRET WEAPON: TOO BOLD FOR BUSINESS OR BUILT TO WIN? In this hard-hitting conversation, we sit down with Jason Wolf, Co Founder & Managing Partner at Iron Nation, to talk about what really makes Israeli startups unstoppable - and why the global investment world is sleeping on some of the best deals out there. 💰 The $20M fund that kept Israeli startups alive after October 7 💡...

Hillel Fuld is back - and he’s got a message for Israeli startups: Wake up. Hillel Fuld is back! As IsraelTech’s first-ever return guest, Hillel joins us for an unfiltered, no-BS conversation about the state of Israeli tech, scaling startups, and what founders keep getting wrong. Named by Forbes as “The man transforming Startup Nation to Scale-up Nation,” Hillel has mentored 600+ entrepreneurs, gu...