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To Build, or Not to Build, That is the Question: Techno-Optimism vs. Decelerationism

নির্মাণ করা, না নির্মাণ করা, এটাই প্রশ্ন: টেকনো-অপটিমিজম বনাম মন্থরতাবাদ

Bauen oder nicht bauen, das ist die Frage: Technooptimismus vs. Entschleunigungismus

Construir o no construir, esa es la cuestión: tecnooptimismo versus desaceleracionismo

Construire ou ne pas construire, telle est la question : techno-optimisme contre décélérationnisme

निर्माण करें, या न करें, यही प्रश्न है: तकनीकी-आशावाद बनाम मंदीवाद

構築すべきか、構築すべきでないか、それが問題です: テクノオプティミズム vs. 減速主義

건설하느냐, 건설하지 않느냐, 그것이 문제이다: 기술 낙관주의 vs. 감속주의

Construir ou não construir, eis a questão: Tecno-otimismo vs.

Строить или не строить, вот в чем вопрос: технооптимизм против деселерационизма

İnşa Etmek ya da İnşa Etmemek Sorun Bu: Tekno-İyimserlik ve Yavaşlamacılık

Xây dựng hay không xây dựng, đó là câu hỏi: Lạc quan về công nghệ và chủ nghĩa giảm tốc

建设还是不建设，这就是问题：技术乐观主义与减速主义

Is Software Eating The Useless Class?

Cowen, Andreessen, and Horowitz: Annotated

Introducing our data-driven business development platform for portfolio companies About a year and a half ago, we began brainstorming how we could scale our value-add services to reach our portfolio companies across the globe. Offering business development, talent, community, and a handful of other perks, to 135+ portfolio companies across various timezones, stages, and sectors can be a bit challenging. To avoid biting off more than we can chew, we first decided to scale our business development efforts. Why? Because as a primarily Series A/B investor, highly targeted introductions to the at the have significant potential to meaningfully affect a business during this stage. right people right time At OurCrowd, we strongly believe in the power of networks. After all, our VC business model is driven by our core networks of portfolio companies, investors, multinational corporations, service providers, and industry experts. So, how do you take the various stakeholders and collectively leverage the “power of the crowd” to benefit your growing portfolio? Introducing OurCrowd Connect Two weeks ago, we unveiled OurCrowd Connect at the 2018 OurCrowd Global Investor Summit. In short, OurCrowd Connect is our data-driven business development platform for portfolio companies to request warm introductions to strategic contacts in OurCrowd’s vast network. Previously, when a portfolio company asked us for an introduction, we typically searched on a case-by-case basis through LinkedIn, Salesforce, Outlook, and other tools to determine if we were able to help or not. It was a mess that produced quality results, but was not at the scale needed to serve 135+ portfolio companies. Today with OurCrowd Connect, portfolio companies can seamlessly filter our network by keyword, sector, location, or size of the target they seek, add requests to a wishlist, and fill out a quick form about why they are interested in the connection. After that, we receive the request, ask the relevant contact if they’re interested, and only facilitate the introduction once mutually agreed upon. This process that previously took days and many stops along the way to fulfill is now seamless, accessible, and scalable to our ever growing portfolio. As we continue to push the boundaries of VC “value add”, we’re reimagining how we deliver quality introductions at scale. We’re redefining what it means to give first time founders the rolodex of a seasoned entrepreneur. And we’re rediscovering how to scale value add services to an exceptionally large portfolio. In the past few months that our companies have had access to OurCrowd Connect, we’ve facilitated over 500 introductions between our portfolio companies, multinational corporations, VCs, and service providers. We’re looking forward to witnessing these introductions go beyond initial conversations and result in partnerships, sales, investments, and more. The potential is truly unlimited with OurCrowd Connect. If you’re an innovation-focused employee at a large corporation, service provider, investor, industry expert, or startup junkie, we invite you to play a role in the startup ecosystem by joining the crowd . here If you’re a founder of a startup and are fundraising (Seed, A, B), or will be in the foreseeable future, I’d love to hear from you. Shoot me an email . here Most importantly, this is a major effort by a talented team of dedicated professionals focused on helping our founders scale their businesses. Kudos to my teammates Eldad Postan, Ariela Lazan, Laly David, Yehoshua Zlotogorski, and Rebeca Querub on this exciting milestone! Hi! I’m Jordan, and I work in VC in Israel. There’s a lot happening in the VC/startup scene and I figured I’d post my observations here. All opinions above are my own. Feel free to follow on Twitter: @jordanodinsky .

Why We Launched OurCrowd Connect

Hundreds of Google and Amazon employees anonymously sign a letter opposing the tech giants’ deal with Israel. As a country compelled to deal with the challenge of scarce natural resources and mostly desert land, Israel values its human resources and believes in providing every available convenience to boost its potential. As Jon Medved, CEO of OurCrowd, a Jerusalem-based investor platform, said, “We don’t have huge natural resources, so we have worked hard to develop our skills-base in the country.” Even as Israel is globally acclaimed as the of the world and at the same time gets noticed for building better-than-existing products, the Bloomberg Innovation Index recently ranked it as the world’s . “Startup Nation” fifth-most innovative country There can be no doubt, therefore, that Israel has raised the bar for technological innovation, and could be helped in good measure by receiving Cloud Services in the country. Meanwhile, Google Cloud, with across the world, where it delivers high-performance, low-latency services for private and public sectors, announced, in , that it was extending Cloud Services to a new region – Israel – to support a growing customer base there. 28 regions and 85 zones April 2021 And so, in May 2021, Israel entered into a named “Nimbus,” worth over $1 billion, with two tech giants, Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud. Other bidders for the project like Microsoft, Oracle and IBM were rejected. four-phased, multi-year project Google Cloud's Global Public Sector Vice President, Mike Daniels, said that according to the signed agreement, they would deliver services to , from Ministries to state-owned companies. The Israeli military also will be provided cloud services. all Israeli government entities Moreover, until the required data centers are constructed in Israel during an estimated two years, Google and Amazon AWS data centers in are expected to deliver the cloud services, and subsequently, transfer all the data once the centers are established in Israel. Ireland, Holland and Frankfurt The project will initially run for seven years, with Israel having the option of extending it for up to 23 years totally. Furthermore, these cloud projects are envisaged to create employment for about 3000 Israelis, and is divided into that comprise acquiring and building cloud infrastructure, creating government policy to migrate to the cloud, integration and migration to the Cloud, and implementation and optimization of cloud activity. four phases With Google Cloud services becoming a reality, Moti Gutman, CEO at Matrix IT Ltd in Israel, said, “[Cloud services] will make a in the technology landscape of the public-sector, enterprise and SMB markets in Israel.” significant change While users of Cloud services in Israel were excited and exhilarated by the potential for enhanced economic efficiency and improved services to citizens, at Google and Amazon, hundreds of employees of the two tech giants signed a public letter, demanding that the two companies pull out of the Nimbus contract. Nevertheless, most of the signatories to the letter were anonymous, probably fearing employee monitoring, but they consider themselves “employees of conscience from diverse backgrounds.” And from the point of view of these signatories is that by providing Cloud services to Israel, Amazon and Google are making it easier for against Palestinians. They voiced concern in the letter that “… This technology allows for further surveillance of and unlawful data collection on Palestinians, and facilitates expansion of Israel’s illegal settlements on Palestinian land.” Israel to commit human rights abuses Coupled with this concern, the employees believe they “have both the right and the responsibility to speak up when the technology we build is used to harm people, as is the case with the Project Nimbus contract with the Israeli military and government.” In order to gain more visibility for the issue, the Jewish employees of Google who signed the letter sent it to . They also asked him to issue a statement condemning Israeli attacks mentioning “direct recognition of the harm done to Palestinians by the Israeli military and gang violence.” Likewise, the Amazon employees who signed a similar letter, sent it to their senior leadership, including to CEO Jeff Bezos. CEO Sundar Pichai Neither Google nor Amazon have issued public statements yet. Ultimately, these fears are based on the Cloud technology’s ability to offer more efficient and expansive data collection, and the employees’ perception of Israeli institutions as “oppressive,” with tendencies to use Cloud services to harm a community of people. However, these fears appear to be unfounded, as Israeli customers of Cloud services are predominantly seeking to use the advantages offered by Cloud technology, to improve their services to customers. As Demi Ben-Ari, Co-founder and CTO of Panorays, a third-party platform, said, “Google Cloud made it easy for us to scale without worrying about DevOps, which meant that our engineers could focus on developing new and better features for our customers.” security Similarly, Yoav Toussia-Cohen, CEO of DoiT International, said, “We are serving hyper growth companies who need Google Cloud’s services and will benefit greatly from this regional presence.” Almost like a harbinger of a situation to come, back in May when the two tech giants signed the Nimbus contract with Israel, there was a media query whether the two tech giants could at any point shut down services and leave Israel in the lurch. Attorney Zviel Ganz of Israel’s Ministry of Finance and Legal Advisor to the Nimbus Project, said, “According to the tender requirements, the answer is no.” He added that the contract also prevents the two firms from denying services to particular government entities. As business leader Craig Dresang aptly said, “Perceptions about people can be powerful. They can also be powerfully wrong.”

Hundreds of Google and Amazon Employees Oppose the Israeli "Nimbus" Cloud Project

Your logo is the banner you carry into the market battle. Most companies consider a logo to be good enough as long as it’s recognizable to the employees and shrug off its mediocrity by saying that they are . But that’s exactly why such companies never reach the level of Apple or McDonald’s. not Apple or McDonald’s A logo is a marketing tool, and if these guys’ marketing doesn’t work, what does? Most logos fail not because they belong to small or obscure companies. And not even because they are poorly designed. The reason they fail is a more fundamental one. Pull up any article on designing a logo. It will suggest starting with a specific step, like looking at inspiring examples, checking out your competitors’ work, determining the type of logo you want, or sketching a rough outline. Sure, if you need a bumper sticker or a fridge magnet, go ahead — look and sketch to your heart’s content. “ ” says the client excitedly after looking through a bunch of competing websites. “ ” I know what kind of logo I want, Here, I’ve already sketched it! But even the creation of the world didn’t begin with a sketch. “In the beginning was the ” is a mistranslation of the Greek , which denotes Meaning, Knowledge, Necessity, Reason, Way. So even God himself started with a logo. This joke holds a kernel of truth. The fundamental meaning of the logo is to create an expanding business universe. Understanding this is half the success. Word Logos The logo is at the top of the pyramid, which rests on brand ideology. A house is built from the foundation up, not from the roof down. Doing it the other way around results in a meaningless image instead of a marketing tool. The logo doesn’t begin with design but ends with it. The logo is a graphic representation of the company’s image, goal, and mission. Any decent designer agency will ask you to prepare a brief and describe your company, product, and target audience; it will also do its own marketing research. The designers will not simply take your wishes into account; they will use them as guidelines. But don’t get too excited. Trying to balance the desire to please you and the need to create a really efficient logo, most designers will err on the side of the former. The wiser and more experienced ones will find a compromise, and you will not want to work with those who prefer to do things their own way. So what’s your best option? If you know that your idea will advance your business interests and not just pander to your tastes, this will not be a problem. To get to this kind of idea, we have to start with the essentials. 1. Describe your business In the beginning, was Knowledge. You are the god and creator of your business universe. Nobody knows your plan as well as you. So it is up to you to lay the foundation. The table below will give you a general idea of what kind of info is important. You can make your own table or checklist of a similar nature. A table is a useful way to collate all the basic data and organize your thoughts. The ultimate goal is to create a verbal description of the company’s image and the message it broadcasts. Only write down the most essential things. If you have any thoughts, ideas, or images, write them down separately while filling out the table. These can be very useful. Don’t throw away your notes; you might return to them later only to discover something valuable. This information is crucial to your project’s success and must be used by the designer in creating the logo. Your company’s description will help to determine the image and style of your logo. 2. Tell the world about yourself A logo is not just an image or a line of text that you like. It broadcasts a specific message to the world. Your sign has to be read and understood by the people it is addressed to. This is important. To succeed, you have to study your target audience and the language it uses and likes. Designers know these kinds of things well. So your task is to give them the requisite information on your target audience and the message you want to get across. 3. Use association mapping Lists and tables are created through analytical thinking, which engages the left part of the brain. But to generate ideas, you need more, so this is where you activate the right part, which guides intuition and creativity. Association mapping is the perfect way to do it. Its usefulness is not limited to researching the image of your company or product. This method can lead to unexpected discoveries and insights in all areas of life. Whereas compiling the table required concentration, now is the time to relax. The association method is straightforward yet effective. It can help you arrive at the information that will be more truthful and useful than filling out dry tables. Get a piece of paper and write your company’s name in the center. Picture it as a special hub that emanates energy. Shut down your internal critic. You are doing this for yourself. Think of all the things you associate your subject with: your brand, your business. Write down everything, even if it seems silly or irrelevant. Let yourself dream. How will your brand appear to others? What should they think and feel when they see it? Pause after writing down the first order of associations. Look at each word in turn and write down associations for the associations. You can go on to the third order, but two are usually enough. The result is often very interesting and helpful in developing any idea. 4. Sketch it out Even if you can’t draw, try to sketch your logo. Don’t be critical. Just draw anything that seems appropriate. Put the sketches aside for later reference. 5. Study examples Now that your thoughts have taken shape, you can look at your competitors’ websites or inspiring examples. If this had been your first step, it would have distracted you from your task and cost you your uniqueness. And uniqueness is what makes you stand out in the market. 6. Choose the best Wait a couple of days, then revisit all the material you have collected to see it afresh. Choose the most essential and informative stuff, the best ideas, and sketches. 7. Result If you did all of the above, you did more than save yourself a lot of unnecessary costs. You are a hero ready to do market battle under your own banner. You have created the right foundation not only for your logo but for your brand’s visual identity as a whole. You have found the direction you should be taking. And now it’s time to contact the designers. Of course, designers can make your life easier by doing all this research for you (they will have to do it anyway). However, the designers' ideas may contradict your vision unless you get to the bottom of your subject to make your brand’s image correspond to your goals. When you know exactly what you want, there will be no place for misunderstandings. Your result will be a real logo that works for you. A logo that will make your product exciting and recognizable. A logo that will bring you victory. Also published at: https://www.outcrowd.io/blog/make-your-logo-work-for-you

How to Make Logo Work for Your Business?

You should care a lot about these basic UX points that affect usability. To , you need to know what the “weak spots” of the interface are. There’re typical “trouble areas” a designer should pay special attention to. Usually, these are the points where you should look for the reasons for bad user experience. improve UX Any changes mean a time and resource investment and must be justified. The sooner a problem is discovered, the easier and cheaper you can fix it. In an ideal scenario, a UX audit should be conducted before UX improvements. However, knowledge of the basic rules of UX testing and tools for improving it is necessary for every designer to grow professionally. For testing, you should involve real users who aren’t designers. So where are the most common problems hiding? 1. User research The basis for interface designing is the results of marketing research. Without knowing the target audience, its tastes, preferences, motives, and goals, any attempt to make a good design will fail. This is the foundation of the house, without which it will collapse. Check if you have collected the full information about the users. Are their portraits and behavioral patterns thought out? Do you have enough information about the product and is there a concept for how to get your audience interested in it? Make sure you fully understand your users and know how to meet their expectations. 2. Design concept Some designers misunderstand the essence of a design concept. This is not about creativity or trendy and custom design. A design concept is an idea behind a design that you use to convey your client’s message to users. The design concept must, first of all, meet the expectations of users and solve the tasks of the website (application). Make sure your design concept meets the main objectives set. 3. User flow Unbethought or ill-conceived user flow is a common problem. It’s important to check the following: Is the user performing the actions in the correct order? Do all scripts and processes have logical ends? How quickly does the user reach the goal? Have you prevented possible mistakes? Are there obstacles on the way and can they be eliminated? People come from different entry points. On their way, there are decision points (moments of interaction). Test if user behavior corresponds to your planned scenario, do they go through key moments of interaction exactly as you intended? How many clicks do they make to the result, is it possible to reduce their number and remove all unnecessary ones? If the flow is not going according to plan or there are obstacles, it’s necessary to change the structure of visual design and information architecture of the website (application), even if you really don’t want to. This is essential. Make sure your user flow is a pleasant and easy journey, oriented to fulfilling the user’s desire. 4. Reasonable visual Good visual manages users’ attention. It makes the road to the goal visible, predictable, and understandable. A bad design can ruin the user flow and lead astray. This happens when the visual hierarchy is broken, accents are missing, or placed incorrectly. Displaced accents lead the user away from the goal, unnecessary animation distracts, visual “overload” diverts attention. If the content isn’t perceived (incomprehensible, too voluminous, unattractive, doesn’t draw attention, etc.) — the reason can be not only bad design but also poor awareness of the tastes of the audience or an unsuccessful concept (clauses 1 and 2). Good visual design means: a clear and understandable path to the goal; attention management; clear visual hierarchy; correct accentuation of points of interaction; competent presentation of content; effective calls to action; contrasts of images and fonts, visual rhythm, balance; responsiveness and communication; emotional impact. Make sure your visual design creates a gaze motion trajectory that corresponds to the user flow. 5. Optimization of interactions Communications and interactions are the means for connection with the user, the most important part of UX. The interface should be a friend and helper for the user, with whom it’s pleasant to communicate. For this, you need to: Provide visual feedback on the state of the system; Prevent the occurrence of errors; Show friendly and encouraging error messages; Separate features that incur lengthy scenarios to reduce the probability of accidental use; Provide the possibility to easily undo actions; Minimize the negative effect of interrupted activities; Save information about the user’s previous actions (so that they don’t enter the data all over again, but could correct it); Create responsive clickable zones (with the help of size, color, animation). Create moments of emotional interaction. Use these and other possible methods to make your interface as smart, caring, responsive, and “human” as possible. Make sure your interface visually “communicates” with the user, helps them avoid mistakes and achieves their goals. 6. Readability from any device To make the site content look good on any device, you can use an adaptive, fluid, or responsive layout, depending on your tasks. However, first of all, you need to orient towards user convenience. is optimal in many cases. It allows you to transform the layout by rearranging elements using breakpoints. Responsive design uses vectors that don’t overload the page and don’t change visually at any stretch. Responsive layout Make sure that you provided a good display of your interface on all devices. Services for testing of adaptability: https://responsivedesignchecker.com/ https://www.browserstack.com/ https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/intl/en-gb/feature/testmysite/ https://search.google.com/test/mobile-friendly Accessibility 7. Accessibility means the possibility to use a digital product for people with different physical abilities, in any environment and situation (on different devices, with different scalability and lighting, with different control methods). Provide an option of equal access for all. High accessibility means acquiring as many users as possible and is well worth the effort. Make sure that you took care of accessibility and comfort for all of your users in all circumstances. The user’s goal is not to appreciate the advantages of the interface. Their goal is to get what they came to the page for, and the designer's task is to help them achieve what they want. Also published at https://medium.com/outcrowd/how-to-improve-ux-design-cd5957f98b71

7 Key Points To Improve UX Design

Are you aware of all the opportunities that illustrations give? are becoming more and more popular in the design of websites and applications. They are used with increasing frequency, but this isn’t just a fashion statement. Not all designers think about what exactly constitutes the power and potential of illustrations and know how to apply this power purposefully. Our team has been working with illustrations for a long time, and we are happy to share our experience with the readers. Illustrations Illustrations perform a variety of functions. They work as visual explanations and visual examples, make the brand recognizable, maintain the stylistic unity of the project, and help highlight the main thing. Illustrations make the project unique and memorable, one of a kind. They inspire the affection and trust of users in the resource. And these are just a few of the possibilities of illustrations. An interface is not a place for useless decorations and cute but unnecessary elements. They aren’t decorations. Illustrations should have a specific purpose and only be used purposefully. Designers need to first define the goals they want to achieve with illustration techniques. Let’s take a look at typical goals. 1. Informing Illustrations are good for creating visual instructions or user guides. Minimal drawings are much better than photographs because they don’t contain distracting details and show the necessary actions or steps of the user clearly. With the help of illustrations, you can concisely demonstrate the activities of the company, tell its story. Instructions such as purchase steps, process stages are better understood with the help of simple visual demonstration rather than photos. Mobile app — Hobby 2. Navigation Illustrations, especially graphic ones, are essential for navigation. They help you easily create a “path” and show users where to go and where things are located. Images of arrows, pointers, pointing hands, roads and “traces”, scaling of elements to create a visual “path” — all this contributes to a better user orientation on the site. Landing page — Kitchen 3. Emphasizing, highlighting of the main thing An interesting, spectacular illustration instantly attracts attention. If a drawing and a photo of the same visual weight are located side by side, the user’s eye is more often attracted by the drawing. This is the specialty of our perception. The accentuating illustration should be placed exactly where we want to direct the user’s attention, and not somewhere nearby to fill the free space for the beauty of the composition. Mobile App — Blue collar 4. Icons, stickers Icons, stickers, pictograms made using illustration techniques are much more attractive, interesting, and unique. They can’t be compared to templates from databases. Drawn icons help maintain the unity of style, create emphasis. Along with functionality, they can serve as decorative elements. Sticker pack for Sweetle 5. Brand awareness Illustrations are an integral part of the brand’s style, along with the brand colors, fonts, logo, and mascot. Illustrations help to emphasize the features of the brand, to distinguish it from many unmemorable others. An illustration that is repeated on a website, on product packaging, on business cards and other media is quickly remembered and associated with the brand by the users. 6. Drawing of attention An outstanding, original, unusual or simply beautiful illustration attracts the eyes and arouses interest, which users mentally transfer to the content as well. Illustration helps to visually stand out from the mass of template projects much more effectively than using photography. Mobile App — Infinito 7. Better content perception Illustrations in a long text not only make it clearer and more interesting but also contribute to the easiness of reading and perception of information. A large number of photos, especially detailed ones, often complicate the perception of the text and make the page visually heavier. Small minimalistic drawings help break the “text wall” and make it easier to read. 8. Creation of atmosphere, mood The use of illustrations for adornment and decoration is justified only if such a design is intended to create a special atmosphere. Landing-page-Vilego If you know ahead what mood needs to be created and what kind of atmosphere users will prefer, it will be easier to choose illustrations and decor elements. 9. Creation of a character A drawn character attracts attention, wins the users’ favor, arouses sympathy. For example, what happens if you remove the cute yellow bird from this application? Will at least one child be interested in it? Of course not. And if you replace the drawing with a photo of a bird? The answer is the same. The character is indispensable! Apps for kids by Mike | Creative Mints It works just as well with adults — mascots, various characters, and images still win our sympathy. Personalizing the brand image is a smart marketing move, not an artists’ whim. No matter how old you are, Mickey Mouse remains your acquaintance, whom you won’t confuse with anyone. First of all, the character is a friend and helper. For example, on the Duolingo website, an owl helps to learn a language, praises, approves, and gives out awards for achievements. The owl is depicted simply, even schematically, but such a character is also remarkable and evokes positive emotions. The task of the illustrator is to create a recognizable and memorable image that will be associated with the brand by the users and evoke the desired emotions. Then users will come back to them again and again, as to their good old friend. 10. Elitism A beautiful drawing is a work of art, not a product for mass consumption. By decorating designs with high-quality, stylish, and even distinguished illustrations, illustrators create more than just a unique product. They broadcast the belonging of users to a certain circle and non-verbally communicate that this resource unites people with good taste, education, and culture of a certain level. The illustrations can also reflect certain traditions. There are many resources for which this is crucially important. For example, the illustrations on this site spread the spirit of the good old English traditions (thus, the quality of the product and the reliability of the company): 2ammedia.co.uk And these sites position themselves as elite clubs with the help of illustrations: hendricksgin.com cantilever-chippy.co.uk rebeccasehn.com hleb-dom.ru springsummer.gucci.com 11. Attention distraction Illustrations can be not just attractive, but distractive as well. There is an effective way to distract attention through illustrations. This is the use of so-called “mesmerizing” images or interesting drawings with many details. Having entered the site, the visitor examines such a drawing closely and remains on the page for a long time. As a result, they get an idea of ​​what is being offered here. a little trick Distraction is sometimes used as a marketing trick. For example, a page contains several sales proposals, one of which is extra expensive. If an unusual, spectacular, or even strange picture is placed next to it, the user’s attention is distracted and switches from thoughts of a high product price to the idea of ​​a special, exclusive offer. It has been proven that this trick works — the product is psychologically perceived as less expensive and worth it. These are the rare exceptions when illustrations distracting. If illustrations distract from important content, it already means a gross design mistake. should be Too much of a good thing is good for nothing Designers’ sympathy for illustrations doesn’t mean that the site needs to be overloaded with pictures so that it turns into a comic. Illustrations should be relevant and functional, meet the goals of the site, and the overall design concept. Illustrations should be skillfully combined with photographs if there are any. It’s far from always worth replacing a photo with an illustration, and sometimes it’s just unacceptable. So, pictures of a product, important processes, and services, tools, real people (for example, portraits of company employees) shouldn’t be replaced with pictures. Advice The relevance and number of illustrations, their purpose, and focus, style, and techniques of implementation should be decided only on the basis of marketing analysis data. Why users love illustrations Drawn content means there are living, interested people behind it, not soulless programs. These people tried their best for users, putting their strength and talent into the work. Illustrations always appeal to users. They make the design humane, authentic, and inspire trust and sympathy among people. On the roof Hand-drawn illustrations evoke more emotion in people and attract attention, thus increase their responsiveness to the information provided. The Internet today is a place for communication, contacts, and mutual understanding. It’s in the best interests of every business to create on its resources an atmosphere that attracts users, to gain their trust and interest. Illustrations are one of the best tools for this purpose. If you aren’t a designer, but the owner of a future site, you should study the portfolios of different designers to choose the style of illustrations you need and make sure they are of high quality. Previously published at https://www.outcrowd.io/blog/illustrations-in-web-design

Illustrations in Web Design: 11 Examples For Your Inspiration

The success of your website or app strongly depends on the cooperation between the designers and the developers. It’s not about the professional skills of either group. You get a competent designer to make you a beautiful layout which you then pass on to an equally professional and experienced developer. Suddenly it turns out it can’t be realized without major changes! Calling it a disappointment would be an understatement. You’ll likely be beside yourself. After all, you weren’t expecting it and have no intention of paying for these changes! And you’ll be absolutely right. But why do situations like this happen so often? How do you avoid them? The Outcrowd team is happy to share their experience. 1. Not being able to control and cooperate Sometimes the customer may choose to have the design layout made by one company and then pass it on to developers at another. Obviously, it’s the customer’s right to manage the project as they please. However, this leads to problems and creates misunderstanding, lost time, and mounting overheads. Why does this happen? The design team loses control over your project and cannot make sure it will be properly implemented. This can lead to errors and unfavorably affect the end result. Not all developers are up to date. While we employ cutting-edge technologies and design approaches, some developers rely on outdated technologies and cannot properly implement our vision. Designers and developers working separately leads to confusion. Clearing it up costs you both time and money. A simple analogy would be a cake recipe. Say a person likes a cake at a friend’s party and asks for the recipe. She goes home and tries to cook it herself. But the flour is different, there’s no cinnamon, and she uses the oven instead of the microwave. It shouldn’t really make much of a difference, should it? But the outcome is disappointing. The cake tastes wrong and nothing like it’s supposed to. The cake analogy does not reflect the whole range of problems stemming from the separate approach. Your idea follows a long path from draft to completion, and this path is a chain of interlinked stages. Each stage requires concerted cooperation between you, the designers, and the developers. Removing a link from this chain and hoping to insert it back later means putting your whole project at risk. This often results in the best of ideas becoming unfeasible or distorted beyond recognition. 2. The eternal conflict of designers vs. developers You have found trustworthy, professional developers who use cutting-edge technology. That’s great, but it still doesn’t guarantee success. The reason is as old as it is common: the clash between the designer and the developer. It’s a problem that should not be ignored. The clash happens because of the nature of their respective work and their different goals. Designers like to serve as the customer’s advocates, protecting the customer’s interests, being mindful of his or her requirements and perceptions, and consequently generating a lot of tasks for the developers, often to the latter’s displeasure. Some designers only care about the esthetics of a project and have no interest in its ultimate fate. Especially when it’s going to be developed by some unknown party. For their part, developers don’t care so much about users’ problems as they do about programming all functions to work properly and correctly. They prefer simpler and easier solutions to avoid making the code too complex. This clash between designers and developers is essentially a conflict of creativity vs. logic. The designers’ creative ideas may confuse the developers, whereas the designers themselves may not comprehend how hard it would be to implement their vision. For the customer, this conflict results in longer completion terms, frayed nerves, and larger overhead expenses. Which is clearly not what you were looking for! You can justifiably say that you don’t care about all this infighting, that all you care about is the result — but this clash is key to understanding why your project failed. Knowing there’s a pothole in the road makes it much easier to avoid, doesn’t it? How to avoid unnecessary conflict Over many years of work, the Outcrowd team has arrived at a solution to this problem. It wasn’t easy, but now both we and our customers enjoy a stress-free working relationship. So how do we avoid conflicts over the project? working in parallel Web designers and developers should work in parallel, constantly coordinating their moves from stage to stage. For instance, we create a wireframe and give it to both a programmer and a designer for parallel work. Elements created by the designer will replace the temporary ones used by the programmer. If the Technical Task is ready, the designers design while the programmers code. Then the layouts are passed on to be coded, one by one, where they are checked against the original design and functionality, tested and launched. Your project comes to life. To create a proper website, the designers and the developers have to work together from beginning to end. This will ultimately result in a more consistent web project with good esthetics, user interface, and code. There will be fewer changeovers and expenses during this cooperation, and the project can be completed earlier. In short, the work of designers and developers is closely linked. Anyone would agree that kneading the dough for a cake in one kitchen, making the filling in another, and baking it in a third one is not a good idea. But not everyone grasps the same concept when applied to website development. teamwork Working together minimizes misunderstanding between the designers and the developers, though it does not eliminate it completely. Still, the advantages of designers and developers working as a team are indisputable. It’s much easier to resolve an issue within one team than between two different companies that bear no responsibility for each other’s work. For us, concerted work by the designers and the developers is a matter of pride and a guarantee of the quality of the job. education We have also come to the conclusion that the clash between programmers and designers can be resolved by widening their horizons. When designers learn more about coding and developers learn more about design, it leads to a better understanding between them. Productive work is based on understanding not only your own job but that of your counterparts as well. Outcrowd actively encourages professional development, education, and awareness. This allows us to always stay ahead and avoid any misunderstanding. Afterword An efficient project always rests on three pillars: the customer, the designer, and the developer. Only their simultaneous cooperation can create a quality product. The key to success is the concerted movement of all participants toward a single goal. This can only be achieved by joining the efforts, not by being apart. To bring your idea to fruition and have it function properly, you need teamwork. It makes more sense to bake the cake in one kitchen! For the duration of the project, our customers become our partners and team members, and that is the best way of ensuring success. The Featured Illustrations by Outcrowd Previously published at https://www.outcrowd.io/blog/why-designers-and-developers-should-work-on-your-product-together

Working Together: How Designers and Developers Can Collaborate While Building Products

Israel’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) startup ecosystem has raised over $7.5 billion cumulatively and is undergoing explosive growth, characterized by a major influx of establishments and talent, forming what could be considered the global leader of AI over the next five years. Notwithstanding their absent national agenda and budget, Israel has already earmarked the largest AI exit to date (Mobileye — 15.3B) and boasts a substantial and growing cluster of startups utilizing and developing AI technologies. The below showcases Israel’s monstrous ecosystem of AI startups (including technologies such as Machine , Deep Learning, Computer Vision, Natural Language Processing, Robotics, Speech Recognition, etc.) — those developing or utilizing AI technologies central to their core offering. The startups and their corresponding information can be found . infographic Learning here Here’s the top 20 highlights of the ecosystem developments to date: , of which 445 startups have raised one or more funding rounds. Over the last five years, an average of 140 startups are established annually. There are over 950 active startups utilizing or developing AI technologies , up 70% from 2016, and have already raised $1.5 billion for the 2018 year to date, tracking almost identically from the previous period. Deal volume peaked at 207 investments in 2017, up 19% from 2016, but is tracking lower as of the 2018 year to date at 133 deals, down from 158 over the previous period. AI startups raised $1.94 billion funds in 2017 exhibited the most growth, up 64% and 32% respectively from 2016 to 2017. Seed rounds totaled 59 deals in 2017 up from 56 deals from 2016, but 2018 is on track to surpass 2017 for all rounds. A, B and C rounds have already surpassed the previous period, tracking at 42, 21 and 5 deals respectively. And Seed deals are tracking at 41 deals, just under the 42 seed deal count for the previous period. Also, A rounds for the 2018 year to date have reached an inflection point by surpassing the number of Seed rounds, which suggests A rounds will register higher than Seed round volume for the 2018 year — uncharted territory. Deal volume for B and A rounds , while 16% offer a mixed offering of hardware and software. 84% of AI startups offer a purely software-based solution , while 28% are consumer-facing (B2C). 71% of startups are business-facing (B2B) , of which 21% are utilizing deep learning technologies**.** 13% are using computer vision technologies and 11% are using natural language processing. Only 4% are working with robotics and process automation, while 3% are using speech recognition technologies. 51% of AI startups are utilizing machine learning technologies Over the last five years, AI exits averaged a cool $121 million per deal and sell for 5.6 times their total funding at the date of exit, but the multiple has climbed to 8.3 times for the 2018 calendar year to date. On average, AI startups raised $17.5M before exiting. Cumulative Israeli AI startup exits total nearly $4.4 billion over 66 exits. startup following their establishment, and the duration is trending downwards. Excluding outliers, the exit multiples exhibit a positive linear relationship in relation to the startup’s lifespan after 4 years of operation, and suggests a ‘sweet spot’ between 6 and 8 years, yielding the highest return multiple during that time period. Multiples taper off after 8 years and decline with additional time. The typical startup takes 6.0 years to exit . Only two exits (Mobileye’s IPO and Datorama’s acquisition by Salesforce) are over 500M, while the remaining deals are below 100M (40% are between 10M and 50M). Nearly one third of exits are comprised of deals between 100M — 500M , namely computer vision core technologies and computing hardware, followed by marketing advanced targeting, analytics and mobile marketing segments. Enterprise cyber security and automotive autonomous driving systems follows suit. The most sought after Israeli sector by way of exit activity are AI technology offerings , engineers and data scientists working on AI research, development and integration (software and hardware included). 64% of Israeli AI talent are employed by startups, while 31% are employed by a combined 58 multinational corporations with dedicated AI centers/labs in Israel. The rest are employed by Israeli corporations and universities. Israel is a hotbed for AI talent, tracking at almost 3,935 developers , employing nearly 270 AI employees, followed by IBM at almost 130 AI employees. Combined, they account for almost a third of AI talent employed by multinationals. Intel Corporation leads the multinationals , however, females account for almost 30% of currently enrolled AI PhD students. Females account for 9% of the total Israeli AI talent pool institutions with 41 currently enrolled PhD students studying AI related disciplines. Technion university placed second with 30 currently enrolled AI PhDs students, followed by Tel Aviv University (22). Hebrew University leads the Israeli secondary education . Early stage startups with A round funding or less funding spend between $350K — $1M on annual total AI related expenses, while startups with B funding or more range between $1.5M — $2.3M per year. The average AI employee in Israel earns between $109K — $140K annually in Israel with 26 total investments, excluding follow-on investments. Jerusalem Venture Partners ranks second, followed by iAngels, Pitango Venture Capital and Vertex Ventures. OurCrowd is the most active investor in AI startups , Microsoft ScaleUP TLV dominates the landscape with 33 participating startups included in the AI landscape. For accelerators , used by 79% of startups. C++ ranks second, used by 30% of startups, followed by Java (25%) and R (14%). The top programming language used for AI development is Python , 89% of startups use a combination of CPUs and GPUs for their computing needs. 55% of startups use GPUs exclusively. 10% of startups use DSPs, 6% use SoCs, and 5% use FPGAs and ASICs. For computing power while searching for data partners. 28% of AI startups are still building their algorithms As the world is racing to achieve AI supremacy, Israel is categorically carving its position at the top stage. Codified intelligence is deep-rooted in Israel, and it will strongly define the country’s achievements in the future to come. Download the comprehensive report on Israel’s State of AI for more detailed information accompanying this post at . www.startuphub.ai If you notice any missing companies, please email danielsinger27@gmail.com. Note: The process of categorization was based on opinion at times and may have errors. The list is not exhaustive. All rights reserved for the infographic above under Daniel Singer, 2018. Share this infographic, but cite and credit appropriately back to this post. For commercial intent, please inquire for explicit consent.

Israel’s Artificial Intelligence Landscape 2018

While crypto markets continue to flounder in terms of currency value, more and more traditional investment institutions like JP Morgan are adopting blockchain to solve some of their challenges. I have long surmised that the outcome of the current crypto boom would be similar to the equity crowdfunding madness of a few years ago. Many entered and only a few remained. Yet, those few like attracted plenty of institutional and traditional investment. OurCrowd JP Morgan CIO Lori Beer said the following at her press conference in Buenos Aires: “We are currently following many paths. We invented a blockchain with an open code based on Ethereum. Actual blockchain technology has not yet resolved issues with privacy and scalability that we needed. We are connected to Hyperledger and Enterprise Ethereum Alliance. The application of this technology in business is more important to us than the technology itself. We are looking not only for cost reduction, but also for opportunities to develop new products.” Why is Beer’s statement so important? It indicates as has been happening over the past quarter or two that traditional institutions are beginning to enter into the crypto fray. This is key for creating a growing ecosystem with less volatility and increased long term value. Rudolf Medvedev, CEO of says the following in regards to Beer’s statement: Ternion “This will finally make a unified system. Where you don’t have to use 3–4–5–6–7 blockchains, but one shall be functional for all. This will make it easier for development and implementation in the real world.” Ultimately successful platforms will be forced to shed the crypto angle and function far closer to fintech platforms we have grown accustom to.

Are Traditional Institutions Finally Accepting Cryptos?

Photo by on Matthew Sleeper Unsplash The way venture firms onboard portfolio companies varies firm to firm, partner to partner. Some have a formal process, other’s don’t. Yesterday, we formally onboarded another company to OurCrowd’s family of startups. Throughout the past year, we’ve experimented with a few different onboarding models and have learned a lot. Here are a few lessons we’ve learned along the way. Set Expectations Upfront If you walk away with one piece of information, it’s this. Not every VC can help with everything. That’s ok. Pretending you’re the answer to the company’s prayers is where problems begin. As a VC, you should find your superpowers (talent, BD, operations, etc.) and be open and honest about what you can and can’t help with. Be clear about what your value-add is, how founders can extract value, and what kind of communication they should expect moving forward. Define The Lead At some firms, the partner that led the investment takes the board seat and leads all communications with the company. In other firms, the platform team handles the post investment processes. And in many firms, it’s all ad-hoc. It’s important for your founders that you communicate who they should be in touch with when they need help. Meet On Their Turf As often as you can, meet at the offices of your portfolio companies. This boosts culture and morale for the founders and their teams. Show that your the type of VC that’s willing to make the trek to them. Seeing investors in the office imbues a sense of confidence and validation, and it helps VCs see the people who are hustling to help their investment grow. Focus Too often, these meetings become pitch sessions. If you find yourself talking about the market size or competitive analysis, you’ve missed the point. This is your time to define strategic goals and to brainstorm how investors can leverage their expertise and network to bring you to your next milestone. Hi! I’m Jordan, and I work for a global VC based in Israel. There’s a lot happening in the VC/startup scene and I figured I’d post my observations here. All opinions are my own. Feel free to follow and get in touch on Twitter @jordanodinsky .

Tips For Onboarding Portfolio Companies

What can you look at if traditional channels let you down It is not a secret that we live in an era of abundance, and money is certainly abundant out there. What sometimes is missed is a way to channel them toward specific objectives and activities. I am actively involved in fundraising work with both startups and a venture fund, so this is a problem I am seeing nowadays more than ever. And whether you are raising money from a VC (entrepreneurs) or LPs (investors), you might be glad to know that other ways exist to obtain the money you need to run your company. The following methods are surely a partial list of the ones existing, but I am in search mode for new innovative ways to efficiently channel money, so if you have ideas or saw something interesting please comment below and let me know. Crowdfunding Image Credit: https://it.depositphotos.com/portfolio-2877797.html Well, this is not exactly new but is worth to mention and talk through in a more systematic way. Crowdfunding is a way to pull and pool together small amounts of money from a multitude of (usually small and not-sophisticated) investors. To my knowledge, there are at least six different types of crowdfunding (borrowing this classification from — read his book by the way, very interesting if you want to get into angel investing): brian cohen a way for not accredited investors to buy an infinitesimal equity stake in a startup; Equity crowdfunding: a peer-to-peer lending example where the entrepreneur borrows money from those small investors and agree to repay the loan if the company starts off; Debt crowdfunding: the investment is still small in the reward-based model, but the money is directed toward social projects and usually the investor gets rewarded with a perk or a symbolic token; Reward-based crowdfunding: this is a donation-based type of funding where people donate money to support a project that usually has some ethical or moral implications; Good-cause crowdfunding: this model envisages people pledging money today with the expectation of receiving the first batch of shipped products in the future (a product that, to be clear, it only exists on paper!); Pre-order crowdfunding: a sort of hybrid model between a reward and a donation one, where makers describe their inventions and request seed money from individuals who are basically very excited about what the inventor is building. Inventor-based crowdfunding: There are multiple very well-known platforms which are examples of what described above, such as , , , , , , , , , etc., and I think they will stick around for a while since they try to democratize an asset class that has been historically very selective and not within everyone’s reach. Kickstarter Indiegogo Lendingclub Kiva Seedrs Crowdcube OurCrowd Quirky SeedInvest Token Offering Image Credit: zoommachine/Shutterstock Call it ICO or token issue or whatever you feel like, but the idea is not extremely far from a crowdfunding one. The main difference is that you as an investor receive a token that represents the smallest functional unit of a specific network (or application). , an ICO is a hybrid concept that has elements of a , a campaign, and a with a limited power and application’s domain. As I already said before shares allocation pre-sales/crowdfunding currency In the startup world, there are nowadays so many examples, scandals, theories and problems in the ICOs world that does not make any sense to give you here examples or a up to date (but clearly , , and , within many, have done the history of the field so far). list of the most relevant ones FileCoin Tezos Telegram SingularityNET In venture capital world however, a fascinating concept proposed some years ago was ( ), which in 2016 was also hacked and “unloaded” by about $50M. A new variation of the DAO has been recently postulated and named (DAO + ICO), which basically merges the characteristics of a decentralized venture fund with the ones of an ICO (leaving some sort of voting power to the initial contributors). the DAO Decentralized Autonomous Organization DAICO DAICO original concept: https://ethresear.ch/t/explanation-of-daicos/465 Another recent (and more interesting, at least to me) case is instead the , which tokenized the opportunity to invest in a group of pre-vetted early-stage startups (coming out from the 22nd Batch of 500 Startups). This option gives you (and this is one of the key points of the ICO mechanism itself) not only access to deals but also a certain degree of liquidity (you can sell your token and exit your position). 22xFund Finally, still in the VC sector, and are trying to do somehow similar things, with the first two respectively more oriented toward real estate and luxury asset classes (the first one) and e-commerce, logistic and biotech (the second one), the third one fostering and investing only in the tokenized ecosystem itself, while the latter specialized in AI and targeting anyway accredited investors with the intent though to make VC fundraising faster, easier, more transparent and more liquid. EQUI Capital , JWC Blockchain Ventures , SPiCE VC Asgard VC Syndication Platforms Image Credit: phive/Shutterstock To this class belong software platforms that allow (i.e., investors who are financially sophisticated and with enough means to properly invest) to pool together and invest in a bigger round alongside micro VC, super angels, and other wealthy individuals. accredited investors is the best example of this class, but (focused on the healthcare domain) or are equally valid alternatives. AngelList Gust , AngelMD Propel(x ) Enabling Platforms Image Credit: I’m friday/Shutterstock This is kind of a new concept, which could, in theory, be included in the previous group, but I am intentionally trying to separate them since this concerns different types of . decentralized marketplaces In this cluster, I would include companies and platforms that are not using alternative fundraising themselves but rather creating the foundations for others to leverage non-traditional channels. The best example to explain it is likely , which basically allows the “tokenization of real-world objects”. And by the way, it is a non-profit company, so when they say they do that for increasing trust and transparency in the industry I think it is easier to believe them. Swarm Fund A second alternative is given instead by , which has recently launched a fund backed by other VCs to invest exclusively in decentralized applications built on the Blockstack platform itself (it is slightly more complicated than that, but I am trying to oversimplifying here). This project falls within the group because what they are really trying to do is building a new decentralized version of the internet (but sure, why not revolutionize the investment world in the meantime?) Blockstack Enabling Platforms Conclusion This is not a full list of alternative fundraising mechanisms, but rather a first attempt to map what options both entrepreneurs and investors have. I am not on purpose distinguishing between fundraising for startups and for venture funds because I am more interested in what is conceptually possible and how emerging technologies such as AI and blockchain are changing the industry. In addition to unlocking a new phase for the investment world, those technologies and new business models are democratizing venture funding (from both sides) as never before, as well as solving some major issues the field has ever had. They are indeed i) getting more companies in front of a larger audience; ii) reducing the cost of investing; iii) increasing the market liquidity, and iv) increasing the capital availability (and the possibility to achieve a certain financial goal). However, whether all this democratization will have a positive effect on the industry is still unclear and I would not rush to line up with one side or the other until the long-term implications of those channels will be deeply thought and analyzed.

Alternative Mechanisms of Fundraising

An in-depth look startups and corporations pioneering the logistics journey A few months ago, I met with executives from Walmart, as part of a delegation visiting Israel, meeting with the brightest minds in the country. Participating in these meetings opened my eyes to the extraordinary world of logistics — a trillion dollar industry that connects the world, responsible for shipping some $19 trillion dollars worth of goods annually. Walmart, Amazon, Target, Gap and every retail business has to tackle hundreds of potential supply chain nightmares to deliver their products from the factory to their consumers’ doorsteps. While the level of innovation taking place today in the industry is unprecedented, startups continue to reinvent the status quo to solve pain points leveraging everything from robotics to drones to big data analytics. What is Logistics? Before highlighting the process of shipping goods from point A to B, it’s helpful to begin with a basic understanding of logistics. “ is the management of the flow of goods, information and other resources between the point of origin and the point of consumption in order to meet the requirements of consumers.” The logistics industry is one of many moving parts including transportation, inventory, warehousing, sorting, packing, and last mile delivery. Logistics With the context in mind, let’s take a bird’s eye view of the process, from ordering a product online to your doorstep, and the startups enhancing the logistics cycle at every step of the journey. Phase One: Departing the Factory In most cases before ordering a product online, it has already been transported across land or sea to the retailer’s distribution center or warehouse. When many think of shipping, they think of logistics courier giants like FedEx, UPS, and DHL. They picture the parcel delivery man ringing the doorbell and handing over the package. But in reality, the journey begins many steps beforehand. To begin the process, the retailer typically places an order with a manufacturer or supplier. After the order is placed, the next step is booking the freight journey from the manufacturer or supplier to the distribution center. For this, many retailers use freight forwarders, a service used by companies to assist with international imports and exports, to ship goods and cargo from the origin to their initial destination. Freight forwarders are essentially booking agents that estimate the costs associated with transportation, book the journey, and handle the logistics of ensuring safe travel for the cargo from the origin to initial destination, including customs management, packaging, labeling and documentation management. In the past five years, the freight journey has evolved from an archaic, offline headache to an online, modern solution_._ Previously, the price you paid for the freight journey depended on how good the freight forwarder was at their job. Today, there are a handful of startups pioneering the experience. As popular consumer air travel websites like Priceline and Expedia arose, entrepreneurs knew that freight was ripe for a similar disruption. One of the players pioneering the online freight booking space is , an OurCrowd portfolio company, that is digitizing the international logistics process with their platform for seamless freight booking. Freightos allows importers and exporters to instantly compare and book air and ocean shipments. This is fed by Freightos technology used by over 1,100 global freight forwarders that use Freightos to improve freight sales automation. The Freightos Marketplace, launched in 2016 has over 1,000 B2B customers and dozens of sellers. In the processes, Freightos has created the world’s largest database of freight rates of over 750 million price points. Freightos Capital-rich tech companies like Alibaba and Amazon are also increasingly entering the global freight market, with Amazon recently registering as an NVOCC in late 2016 and Alibaba earmarking some $15 billion dollars for investments over the next few years. Uber, the on-demand taxi behemoth, has also thrown its hat into the freight ring with Uber Freight. Similar to the popular consumer app, Uber Freight connects carriers with shippers on-demand for domestic land travel. Uber also autonomous trucking technology startup Otto in 2016 for $680M to leverage the technology in their freight business. acquired Other solutions have also been implemented to further enhance and alleviate many of the pain points of the freight industry. Automating processes, tracking shipping containers, processing customer documents, and delivering the cargo from the port to the retailer’s distribution center have all undergone significant innovations. With the cost of processing the documents and information estimated at 2x the actual cost of transportation, have partnered to apply a blockchain based distributed ledger to exchange event data, ensure smooth workflows, reduce costs, and ultimately increase the efficiency of the entire supply chain. IBM has also to develop and implement a specialized solution for the food services industry. Walmart uses IBM’s blockchain technology to track the supply chain of produce in their stores, especially useful during a food scare event. IBM and Maersk partnered with Walmart In the previously antiquated industry, middlemen monetized their rolodex to leverage and strong-arm retailers into hiring them to navigate the system. By moving the industry online, the centralization of power, industry know-how, and transparency moved from a few to many. Phase Two: Settling into the Warehouse After the cargo arrives at its destination, it’s sorted at a distribution center and sent to the retailer’s regional warehouse. At the warehouse, technology is leveraged to catalog and sort, maintain and track, and ultimately guide the merchandise to the correct package to be delivered to the customer. With the age of automation, robotic solutions were implemented to mimic and replace the manual labor often involved in maintaining these facilities. Major retailers such as Amazon, Best Buy, Lowe’s, Walmart, and Foxconn, among others, have been in order to reduce the inefficiencies in their warehouses, and increase their bottom line. quick to adopt these technologies In March 2012, Amazon acquired a warehouse robotics company, Kiva Systems (since renamed ), for a whopping $775M highlighting the significant potential in warehouse technology. , Amazon was using over 45,000 of these robots in their facilities to autonomously track and transport merchandise through the warehouse to cut down on the time lag of humans searching the warehouse floor to fulfill orders. Amazon Robotics As of early 2017 By implementing robotics technology into the warehouse, Amazon was able to from an hour and a half to under 15 minutes, while fitting 50% more product into the warehouse. cut packing time Other warehouse technology solutions are being implemented to reduce the time between order and delivery. A developed a solution to track warehouse inventory using drones, which prevents mismatches and helps employees find items faster. Their small drones fly around safely as they scan and itemize RFID tags on inventory. group of MIT researchers “Between 2003 and 2011, the U.S. Army lost track of $5.8 billion of supplies among its warehouses,” says Fadel Adib, the Sony Corporation Career Development Assistant Professor of Media Arts and Sciences, whose group at the MIT Media Lab developed the new system. “In 2016, the U.S. National Retail Federation reported that shrinkage — loss of items in retail stores — averaged around $45.2 billion annually. By enabling drones to find and localize items and equipment, this research will provide a fundamental technological advancement for solving these problems.” — MIT News After the merchandise has been tracked, gathered, and ready to be assembled, a startup called is pioneering the last step of the previously manual process. RightHand Robotics recently began piloting technology to automate the task of recognizing and picking up items from boxes. Founded by a team of researchers from Harvard Biorobotics Lab, the Yale Grab Lab, and MIT, RightHand can pick items at a rate of 500 to 600 per hour, on par with the speed of a human worker, by using machine learning to recognize and handle thousands of items. RightHand Phase Three: Last Mile Delivery After the package is packed, it’s ready for the final leg of the journey, known as last mile delivery. The most important part of the logistics supply chain is the delivery. Everything that happens up until this point is commonly unknown to the paying consumer. Innovative solutions have been piloted using robotics, drones, and other technology to ensure the smooth logistics cycle continues. UPS made a test run earlier this year with their drone technology to increase their drivers efficiency by saving time on parking and walking to the doorstep. Similarly, drones have been used in last mile delivery to further decrease the time between order and delivery. Amazon, Domino’s, DHL, and even 7-Eleven have all developed drone technology that delivers everything from pizza to a new t-shirt via autonomous drones. For urban areas, a pain point is being at the destination to accept the package at the right time. Technology startup relieves this headache by using their address for delivery and scheduling when you want your package delivered. This is a convenience rather than a technological innovation, but as the last-mile experience is paramount to customer success, it’s a worthy idea that solves a real pain point. For smaller businesses, like restaurants, logistics startups like , , and provide solutions for delivery, tracking, payments, returns, and more. Doorman Deliv Homer OnFleet Taken together, the logistics industry has evolved from an offline, archaic industry to an online, modern innovative industry over the past five years. With significant upgrades and improvements at each step of the way, companies are becoming better equipped to handle the volume of transactions placed over the Internet. As service to consumers continue to improve, logistics providers raise the bar for other industry standards as well. With the revolution of technology solutions, robotics, drones, and big data analytics, one can only begin to wonder what’s next? Thank you Eytan Buchman , Sarah Lavin Ableman , and Yehoshua Zlotogorski for reviewing, editing, and improving this post! Update: Since posting, it’s been brought to my attention that Doorman will be shutting down. Read more on that . here Hi! I’m Jordan, and I work for a global VC based in Israel. There’s a lot happening in the VC/startup scene and I figured I’d post my observations here. All opinions are my own. Feel free to follow and get in touch on Twitter @jordanodinsky .

Logistics Tech Market Map — October 2017

The artificial intelligence industry is expected to be worth , and the term AI has become ubiquitous worldwide; the frenzy of many tech enthusiasts, or the topic of discussion at a dinner table. But the hype actually lives up to its name. AI startups are flush with VC cash and even key corporate leaders are actively utilizing the technology to add value and gain a competitive edge. $59.8 billion by 2025 Feared and praised by the world — tech mogul believes AI will be a catalyst for the next world war, and AI guru compared AI to electricity’s transformative role in economic development — it is expected to fuel a technology revolution. And Israel, not surprisingly, is well placed among the world leaders to be a driving engine. Elon Musk Andrew Ng In an effort to track the state of AI in Israel, I researched and analyzed Israeli startups that are employing artificial intelligence technology. The infographic below maps over 430 Israeli startups using AI technology as a core part of their offering, ranging from early to late-stages of funded companies. The startups are separated into eight categories: Technologies, Sectors, Industrial, Automotive, Enterprise, Healthcare, Fintech, and Marketing, and the technology is being used for a myriad of purposes. Insights In the following post, I’ll dive deeper into analytics on Israel’s AI startup ecosystem. For now, here’s a top 10 summary of my findings: 1. For the 2017 year-to-date, Israeli AI startups have raised $837 million, which is already larger than the total period for 2016, and represents a fifteen-fold increase in the last five years. Funding for Israeli AI startups is heating up. 2. , and based on a three year average growth rate, 95 new AI startups are founded each year in Israel. Almost 300 startups were founded between 2014 and today, representing over 60% of all Israeli AI startups. The number of startups using AI technology has nearly tripled in size since 2014 3. . The Enterprise AI market is and growing by 64% annually. By 2020, more than are expected to go toward AI solutions. Last year, a found that 38% of enterprises are already using AI, growing to 62% by 2018. Most of the new AI startups founded since 2014 are in the Marketing and Enterprise sectors valued at $31 billion 40% of new IT expenditures survey 4. — 85% are classified as B2B, while 15% are B2C. The majority of startups are business-facing 5. , 15% use deep techniques, 7% use natural language processing, 4% use computer vision. Among the AI technologies utilized, 57% use machine learning techniques learning 6. Microsoft Accelerator, Office of the Chief Scientist of Israel, JVP, Nielsen Innovate, OurCrowd, Magma Venture Partners, UpWest Labs, Aleph, Glilot Capital Partners and Horizons Ventures. The top 10 most active investors to date in the Israeli AI space are: 7. , and the average age is 2.8 years since founding. More than half of the active startups have raised $500 thousand or less in total funding 8. Fraud and Insurance focused dominate the Fintech sector, representing a combined 63% of the total. For growth stage startups, the Enterprise sector has received the majority of funding ($760 million), represented mostly by Cyber Security startups. The Marketing, Enterprise, Healthcare and Fintech sectors have the largest concentration of growth/later stage startups. startups 9. . Based on the available data, Israeli AI startups are exiting at an average multiple of 8.2 times their total funding, ranging from a low of 2.0 to a high of 20.0 times. The time lag from founding to exit takes 5.4 years on average. There has already been $1.0 billion in total exits, and the average exit deal size is $72 million 10. , and half of the exits were Marketing related startups. Corporate giants like Apple, Microsoft and Google are actively competing to gobble up AI startups and attract the best talent. Half of the exits occurred in the last two years The AI space in Israel is certainly growing and even leading the way in some fields of learning technologies. Stay tuned for a deeper dive into each sector as well as profiles on notable startups in the following posts. Note: The process of categorization was based on opinion at times and may have errors. The list is not exhaustive.

Israel’s Artificial Intelligence Startups

I’m excited to launch my personal Pitch Assist Office Hours for * . I’m a big believer in learning on the go and creating my own education. As a member of the startup & VC ecosystem, it’s crucial to constantly challenge yourself to learn, grow, and connect with founders making the world a better place. As I strive to grow within VC, I’m looking to pay forward what I’ve learned and pitch in (pun intended). pre-seed and seed stage startups* I’m interested in connecting with incredible founders building startups that go beyond the status quo and disrupt common assumptions. My goal is to add value to founders by working together to craft your story and pitch deck. On the flip side, this will help me learn on the go, build up my future dealflow network, and work side-by-side with founders building innovative companies. Why Pitch Assist? A top tier VC will see hundreds of pitch decks every month. Most get lost in the shuffle of their inbox and, of the decks that VCs do find the time to review, many aren’t communicated well enough to land a face-to-face meeting. Building a pitch deck is more of an art than a science. I’ve reviewed hundreds of successful pitch decks that do an incredible job of telling inspiring stories. Without following a template or rubric of what to include, these pitch decks paint an inspirational picture of the future that pique VC’s interest and get them excited about hearing more about your startup. Why Me? Before joining the Portfolio Development team at OurCrowd, I was in Investment Marketing. For those who are unfamiliar, we’re a global online VC (think Israeli AngelList) that has funded 120+ startups with $400M+. While working in Investment Marketing, I had the opportunity to review hundreds of pitch decks and assisted in raising $69M+ for 29 extraordinary startups. If you’re interested in connecting…. Email me: odinskyj@gmail.com Subject: “ ” Pitch Assist Office Hours Who you are, what your idea/product is/does, most recent pitch deck (if you have one), what 3 things you’re working on at the moment Intro: How can I help End: I’d appreciate a 💚 so other founders can get in touch — or feel free to intro them to me directly! 🙏 Big thank you to Ben Tossell and David Stark for the inspiration to do this! Hi! I’m Jordan, and I work for a global VC based in Israel. There’s a lot happening in the VC/startup scene and I figured I’d post my observations here. All opinions are my own. Feel free to follow on Twitter: @jordanodinsky .

Pitch Assist Office Hours

Unsupervised Investments (I): A Guide to AI Investors

As I wind down , and the incredible experience I have had in serving as the , I’ve been thinking back on what I have learned from having the opportunity to meet with, speak to groups, mentor, and more than anything — listen to the stories, hopes and dreams of close to 1,000 startups. my engagement with Rackspace Brand Ambassador to Israel Racksapce art by Gapingvoid When you are singularly focused on doing one thing for what will be 16 months, you not only get good at doing it, you also see patterns. From the patterns there are lessons. And from the lessons there are surprises. I am often asked “what was the coolest company?” “who has something that is under the radar that is going to change the world?” “what company has nailed it in a space that no one thought they could figure out?” While I certainly have met many interesting and compelling companies — I generally ignored the “companies,” and focused on the people. I was more intrigued by what drove people to do what they did, why they did it, and where the inspiration for their startup came from. Being in Israel, you not only meet Israelis — people who are of, and from here, but you meet people from all over the world who, for a multitude of reasons, have decided to live and make their lives here. Some come for religious reasons. Others come because they were on a trip and met someone and stayed. Others have family here and some live and base here, and keep their ties, and possibly another residence elsewhere. During my sixteen month run here, I also met many people from France who decided to leave because of the situation there and have decided to join the wave of French immigration that Israel is witnessing. It’s no secret that Israel is a cool place to be. The global media covers all the amazing investments that are being made, the fabulous exits and wealth that are being created that brings entrepreneurs back to the ecosystem to not only re-invest their money, but more importantly, their time, love, and expertise for doing something amazing again — and doing it here. just released their , and OurCrowd has a Geektime 2015 Annual Report on Startups and Venture Capital in Israel great post they released earlier this week on the Democratization of Investing, highlighting many of their Israel-based investments. While I am thrilled to be part of this incredible ecosystem, and while it is truly amazing to see history unfolding before our eyes, I think we often miss what I call “Israel’s Other Unicorn Economy,” the thousands of small, and sometimes lifestyle businesses that may never see the light of day with an exit or IPO, but provide a nice income and standard of living for its owners and employees. In 2016, we have 500 Startups, the Barclays / Techstars, and MassChallenge programs all expanding and scaling up here. You’ll be hearing more about these programs as they expands. At the other end of the spectrum, and the one that I think matters more, I invite you to pay attention to , , and , located in Gush Etzion, Bet Shemesh, and Modi’in respectively. See how is helping communities in the periphery of the country embrace entrepreneurship. Keep your eyes on what is happening in Nazareth in the Arab-Israeli ecosystem with programs organized by the . Hub Etzion SUBS MESH Presentense Nazareth Business Incubator Center These programs make entrepreneurship more accessible and real. They provide an alternative to having “a real job,” and more than just being all about money, they empower people to help each other win. If I had a choice of having a single billion dollar exit, or one thousand small businesses that do one million dollars in annual revenue, would take the latter all day long. Do the math. It comes to one billion dollars. Yes, it’s a unicorn. And it’s spread wide and deep. Let’s honor and celebrate the big wins. But let’s not ignore the other unicorn economy: the thousand small businesses that are leveraging the power of our collective smarts, will, and drive that not only provide intellectual and capital wealth for the country, but set an example for the rest of the world.

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