ISRAELVALLEY SPECIAL. Il porte en permanence une kippa noire sur sa tête. Impossible de le rater dans une foule. Sa silhouette est massive est impressionnante.
Jonathan Medved est un entrepreneur en série, un capital-risqueur et un investisseur sur la scène high-tech israélienne. Il est le fondateur et PDG d’OurCrowd, une plateforme de financement participatif de premier plan. Il est américain d’origine et israélien et fait partie des personnalités qui marquent profondément la culture du hightech israélien. Medved a investi personnellement dans plus de 100 startups israéliennes.
Il a fondé OurCrowd qui est totalement impliqué dans les investissements de startups. OurCrowd est le premier investisseur israélien à avoir lancé un fonds 100 % dédié au cannabis. Il faut reconnaître que l’industrie du cannabis pourrait atteindre les 32 milliards de dollars d’ici 2022. Au Canada et aux États-Unis, c’est le secteur le plus porteur de croissance.
OurCrowd est une plateforme mondiale d’investissement en capital-risque en ligne qui permet aux institutions et aux investisseurs individuels accrédités d’investir et de s’engager dans des entreprises technologiques émergentes à un stade précoce.
OurCrowd est devenu le fonds d’investissement le plus actif en Israël : un milliard de dollars levés, 170 startups, 18 fonds et des bureaux en Europe, en Australie, en Asie et en Amérique. Une vraie prouesse. Parmi les tendances d’innovation trois d’entre elles ont retenu notre attention.
LE PLUS. Serial entrepreneur and investor Jonathan Medved’s name has appeared on lists of Israel’s leading high-tech venture capitalists, 10 most influential American citizens impacting Israel, top 100 people positively influencing Jewish life, and 50 most influential Jews in the world.
The California-bred Jerusalem resident has invested in more than 100 Israeli startups, helping 12 of them to get to valuations in excess of $100 million. In October 2012, he and cofounder Steve Blumgart launched OurCrowd, the world’s first equity-based crowdfunding startup investment platform.
OurCrowd has effectively disrupted and democratized the venture-capital space, offering accredited investors the chance to put as little as $10,000 into a promising “startup nation” company. Approximately 10,000 OurCrowd investors have funded nearly 80 portfolio startups thus far, including headline-grabbers such as ReWalk Robotics, ElMindA, Consumer Physics and BriefCam.
LE PLUS. Medved is the founder and CEO of OurCrowd, an equity crowdfunding platform that connects its « crowd » of accredited investors to funding startup investments. OurCrowd was started in 2013 and has its global headquarters in Jerusalem with additional offices in Tel Aviv, San Diego, New York, Toronto, London, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Sydney. As of November 2018, OurCrowd has raised $800M in 160 startup companies and venture funds in its portfolio.
Between 2006-2012, Medved was the co-founder and CEO of Vringo, a leader in the innovation, development and monetization of mobile technologies and intellectual property. Medved led Vringo to a successful completion of its IPO in June 2010, and it trades today on NASDAQ under the symbol VRNG.
In 1995, Medved co-founded Israel Seed Partners with Michael Eisenberg and Neil Cohen in a garage with $2 million in funding.
Saul Singer and Dan Senor, in their best-selling book, Start-up Nation, describe Medved as « one of Israel’s legendary business ambassadors….[he] has taken on a role that – in any other country – would typically belong to the local Chamber of Commerce, Minister of Trade, or Foreign Secretary. »
