Aliya Incubator engages the following
question: How can we motivate the next Mark Zuckerberg to immigrate to Israel
and start up a company that will create high value jobs for thousands of
Israelis?
The unrealized potential
And now Israel needs new fresh immigrants more
than ever, cause one of the ingredients in maintaining its entrepreneurial lead status, is a constant flow of motivated entrepreneurial talents to start up
companies and create high value jobs. After the 1990’s huge immigration wave
from Russia, and despite the marked increase in anglo-American immigrants,
Israel has gone from being a country of immigrants, each with their own culture
and background, to a country that’s becoming more and more Israeli and
indigenous, with over 72% born in Israel.[1]
So what’s the main barrier?
The next Mark Zuckerbergs are simply concerned about their financial
opportunities and frustrated by bureaucracy, so they hesitate to do aliya and
starts up abroad.
Let us elaborate: Anglos tend to
immigrate to Israel more for religious, ideological and political purposes, and not
financial ones[2](
Chaim Waxman).
A large majority of American immigrants are
Orthodox (+70%). Almost 40% are married, 22% are single adults and the remainders
are youngsters.[3]
This ensures Israel a high influx of high
quality, highly ideologically motivated, and already financial secured
immigrants, with a solid Jewish Identity.
So why have they not made as
great impact on the start up scene as they could? There is a growing trend for these
type of immigrants to keep the jobs they had in America by telecommuting,
or commuting. The latter is called
“Boeing Aliya”, and is a term that has come to designate economically
comfortable couples with children who, for financial reasons, make partial
aliya. Typically, the wife and children move to Israel as olim, while the
husband commutes to his job in North America.
“Many
individuals have outsourced their old jobs here to Israel – staying up late and
connecting to their old offices, doing the same work, from here,” ( NBN co-founder
Rabbi Joshua Fass).
At the same time, many have
utilized their language skills and joined the High-Tech and NGO labour force as
Technical writers, call center sales agents/customer supports, fundraisers,
etc.
So while Israel has succeeded in attracting
the religious and idealogical motivated anglos, we could do more to tap
into the huge potential of entrepreneurial supertalented youngsters from either
less ideological homes or from ideological homes, but more financially
concerned. These next company founders may have received a spark of inspiration
to do Aliya while on a Birthright trip, and dreams of making aliya, but are concerned about their
financial future, frustrated by logistical, bureaucratic and financial
obstacles and feel that the risk of starting up a business in Israel is too
high. They need help in actualizing their dreams. They are the potential cream
of the crop of new company founders and inventors of the next Facebook, Twitter
or Google. They need “Homeground
advantage”, and we need to provide them a sense of “homeground advantage” in
their old historic homeland. They need a last push. And Israel needs them.
Motivated entrepreneurial superstars and Israel sounds like a natural fit – and
it is! However, a mechanism is needed in order to lower the barrier for the
hesitant potential immigrant.
At the same time, while Venture Capital is flowing
into Israel, it has largely been focused on mature staged projects, and there
seem to be a gap in the market for
the early-stage venture capital sums of
$0.2M-2M range (The Economist)[4]. So while Israel attracts
far more venture capital per person than any other country—$170 in 2010 to
America’s $75[5],
there does not seem to be enough early-stage money to go around. A huge
investment opportunity with high ROI potential is waiting to be utilized.
the early-stage venture capital sums of
$0.2M-2M range (The Economist)[4]. So while Israel attracts
far more venture capital per person than any other country—$170 in 2010 to
America’s $75[5],
there does not seem to be enough early-stage money to go around. A huge
investment opportunity with high ROI potential is waiting to be utilized.
So the central question remains:
How to support, organize, motivate and enable young
anglo Jews to move to Israel and make a transformative impact on Israeli
Society, by building a new layer of entrepreneurial immigrants who can create
the next big thing and generate high value jobs?
Solution
Aliya Incubator is a Technology business accelerator focusing on young
innovative technology anglo immigrant start ups at the very early stages in the
area of “Internet Leverage”.
Aliyah Incubator (AI) vision is to motivate hesitant supertalents
at pre-aliya phase to make aliya and help build a new layer of entrepreneurial
anglo immigrants who can create the next big thing, and jobs for thousands.
Aliyah Incubator’s mission is to revitalize Aliyah by
tapping into the amazing potential of Pre-Aliyah talent, recruit start-up
entrepreneurial super talents and nurture seed-stage ideas from vision to
proof-of-concept product stage.
Aliyah Incubator will achieve its mission and vision by
creating a launching pad for Entrepreneurial and passionated New Immigrants to
catalyze winning Internet technologies of the future to market success -
Transforming Aliyah into Enterprise
Aliyah Incubator (AI) is designed to promote and
facilitate - indeed to ignite the integration of the untapped potential of
pre-aliya anglo entrepreneurs and Israel’s renowned knowledge economy
Aliya Incubator provides:
Early stage investment: The Aliya Incubator fills the financial gap between very early stage
projects and Venture Capital maturity, by providing the initial investment and
business guidance needed to translate innovative ideas into living, breathing commercially-viable
ventures.
Investors'
exposure: exposing the entrepreneur to relevant
potential investors
Infrastructure: Offices rent-free
and equipment.
Administrative: Legal, Banking, Accounting and help dealing with the Israeli public
bureaucracy
Marketing: Mentoring by Entrepreneurs - by Olim for Olim focusing on marketing and
strategic positioning, Product Definition, as well as assistance with access to
channels and markets.
Technology experts and networking: Access to Universities and their Technology Transfer
Offices, as well as industry experts.
“The Israeli Factor”: The Israeli entrepreneurial spirit of creativity and innovation has led
many companies to clear differentiation and major advantages over the
competition. By starting up a company in and breathing the air of Israeli
creativity, will inspire to Innovation, which is a key factor for market
penetration, long product life cycle and commercial success.
Investment opportunity
Aliya Incubator is also a huge opportunity to support Israel, help
reduce assimilation rates, and farm next generation technology crops in Silicon
Wadi.
We build kick off global-Israeli companies consisting of Anglo
immigrants and we invite you to join us!
You enjoy the benefits of partnering with handpicked leading entrepreneurial
immigtant supertalents,
Aliya Incubator offers investors:
Managed Risk by allowing for diversification over
several handpicked start ups in an organized and supported environment,
allowing for pooling of talent and resources, which enable higher rates of
success than stand-alone counterparts. All incubator participants are carefully
screened and handpicked by industry experts.
Leveraged ROI. In return, depending on the
size of the investment and risk, the investor can expect to take up anything
from a small minority equity stake in several companies to a majority holding
in one or a multiple of
Unique opportunity: The Sub £2M space is ignored by most
VC companies so offers real and unique possibilities to invest in growing promising
companies with good management.
Support Israel and Promote aliya: While securing an equity share in the
next Facebook, Checkpoint or Google you will help root Jews to Israel and
fulfill their dreams, building a new layer of anglo immigrant entrepreneurs who
in turn will generate high value jobs in Israel.
Investing in Aliya Incubator is not
only a great investment, its modern day Zionism.
[1]
Hirsh Goodman as qouted in The Economist: It could be just like
Switzerland – The ecomomist Feb 22nd 2012
[2] Waxman, Chaim. American Aliyah, Detroit: Wayne State University Press,
1989. pg. 131-135
[3] Source: Barry Spielman, head of the Aliyah Delegation and director of
communications for the Jewish Agency as quoted in “More N. Americans immigrate to Israel” 8/10/2011 http://washingtonjewishweek.com/main.asp?SectionID=4&SubSectionID=4&ArticleID=15470
[4] What
next for the start-up nation? The Economist Jan 21st 2012
[5] The Economist
