"Fighting for the future of the country means fighting for a democratic and liberal Israel. Without it, we have neither a country nor an industry. We will not agree to give up on Israeli high-tech," declared Erez Shachar, managing partner at the Qumra Capital VC fund, at a special event organized by the fund as part of the Mind the Tech New York conference. The event, held at Madison Square Garden, marked the sixth year in which the fund has selectedIsrael's most promising growth companies. The CEOs gathered for an event that ended in an unusual way: a joint viewing of an NBA game between the New York Knicks and the Los Angeles Clippers.
"The connection between entrepreneurship and sports is immediate and direct," Shachar explained. "The best teams in the world compete with each other, and it's just like in high-tech—companies here compete for global leadership. In addition, the entrepreneurial journey is similar to that of a star athlete. It includes ups and downs and requires building a team that must work well together—just like in the NBA."
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בכירי קרן קומרה עם מייסד טאבולה אדם סינגולדה וכמה מהמנכ"לים של החברות הזוכות, ליד המדיסון סקוור גארדןבכירי קרן קומרה עם מייסד טאבולה אדם סינגולדה וכמה מהמנכ"לים של החברות הזוכות, ליד המדיסון סקוור גארדן
Senior executives from Qumra with Taboola founder Adam Singolda and several of the CEOs of the winning companies, near Madison Square Garden
(Hagai Gilboa)
Among the participants at the event, several CEOs of startups that made this year's list stood out, including Ben Kliger, CEO of Zenity, which specializes in AI-based cybersecurity, and Sanaz Yashar, CEO of Zafran Security. It turns out the two have known each other for many years, having both served in an elite technological unit in the intelligence corps.
Zafran has developed a platform that connects to all security tools in an organization and maps critical vulnerabilities. The system automatically identifies and neutralizes cyber risks, allowing organizations to shift from reactive to proactive risk management.
The story of Yashar, a Tehran native who immigrated to Israel in her youth, served 15 years in the intelligence service, and was discharged with the rank of major, drew particular attention. "As someone who came from Iran, security and freedom are not things I take for granted," she shared. "I have always worried about my life and the lives of my loved ones. I know what it is like to live in a place where people are afraid to say the name 'Israel' out loud."
Yashar drew a parallel between her startup, which integrates different security tools in organizations, and the situation in Israel: "Just as in cybersecurity, where security tools from different companies don’t know how to 'talk' to each other, different segments of Israeli society don’t communicate. As a result, we are losing the physical, social, and image war. We found a technological solution for this at Zafran, and it seems to me that Israel could use a 'Zafran' of its own."
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Leoran Pinchevsky, CEO of Finaloop, which helps e-commerce brands with autonomous accounting, related the NBA connection to entrepreneurship from a different angle: "I feel more like a coach because, in the end, you have to build a team and get talented people to put their egos aside."
Ben Kliger, CEO of Zenity, who moved to New York just two months after October 7, spoke about the challenges of relocating as a young Israeli entrepreneur during a particularly difficult time: "Moving with my children was very difficult, especially with the pro-Palestinian protests that were taking place at the time. After Trump was elected, things calmed down."
Sharon Barzik Cohen, partner and CFO at Qumra, addressed the complexity of holding a celebratory event at this time: "We are experiencing a dissonance. It’s not entirely comfortable to sit in New York and celebrate successes, but our real victory will come from continuing to drive the economy. The best response to the devastation of October 7 will be the growth of startups."
Barzik Cohen emphasized the rigor behind selecting the companies on the list: "We take this process very seriously. We started with 500 companies and, in the end, narrowed it down to ten. The industry already recognizes that our list has an excellent track record of predicting success. Anyone who had invested in the companies we selected over the years would have achieved an extraordinary return."
Adam Singolda, founder and CEO of Taboola, in which Qumra has previously invested, concluded the event with an interesting insight into the parallels between NBA players and high-tech entrepreneurs: "Ultimately, in the NBA, the personality of the players is more important than the team. People connect with Steph Curry more than with the Golden State Warriors as a team. In high-tech, it's exactly the same—in the end, people don’t invest in technology, they invest in people they believe in."