Wix, a company providing website building and management services, is the last Israeli startup planning an initial public offering (IPO) on NYSE. But many more Israeli startups are coming to New York to raise funds and also to grow globally their market reach.
A bunch of them was at the Morgan Stanley head quarters in Manhattan Thursday, October 3rd night, for the “Israeli Tech Made in NY” event, organized by the Worldwide Investor Network of Eyal Bino. It was a great evening, sponsored by the Israel’s Economic Mission to NY. Five startups did their demos: Vodio, Chhozer, Qlika, Pickntell and FortyCloud. They were judged by a panel of highly recognized ventures partners coming from top NYC venture firms including: Greycroft Partners (Ellie Wheeler), ff Venture Capital (David Teten), RTP Ventures (Kirill Sheynkman), Vaux les Ventures (Miles Spencer) , Rho Capital (Habib Kairouz), and Gotham Ventures (Danny Schultz).
At the event there, among more than 100 people, the Innovation officer of the Consulate general of Canada in New York, Miriam Leia Bekkouche, who explained to me that the her government is sponsoring Canadian startups to spend three months in Silicon Alley, learning how to grow from the NYC tech community. They work in a space at General Assembly provided by the Canadian Trade Commissioner Service’s Canadian Technology Accelerator (CTA) program – CTA@NYC –, which give them support and access to mentors and business and investor opportunities in New York.
The Italian prime minister Enrico Letta in his last speech at the Parliament mentioned startups as an engine to revive the Italian stagnant economy: he could learn from the Israeli and Canadian experiences and adopt their method to help Italian startups too.
