The Ultimate Tel Aviv Startup City Guide

Tel Aviv is Israel’s business capital and one of the most significant startup ecosystems in the world. For years now, this city, located on the shore of the mediterranean sea, is widely known as one of the best places to grow an innovative venture outside the US. Despite being a relatively small city (52 km2), it is a condensed hub for thousands of startups, hundreds of VC’s, multinational tech corporates, acceleration programs, and shared working spaces.

Tel Aviv is known among Israelis as “the bubble,” or alternately “the Country of Tel Aviv”. One thing they’ll all agree on is that visitors will find no shortage of ways to stay busy. Named one of the top three tourist destinations in the world by Lonely Planet, Tel Aviv is a sunny city that never sleeps: an international hub with cafés and bars open all night, aspiring entrepreneurs everywhere as well as gorgeous beaches.

GPS Direction: Tel Aviv

Advantages Of Building A Startup In Tel Aviv:

• The culture is perfect for growing a startup: Taking risks is highly encouraged and appreciated.
• Entrepreneurship is the national sport. Join the party!
• ~70 multinational tech corporates giants have a presence here, mostly scouting for startups (out of 300 corporate giants that have a presence in Israel, most of them are located in Tel Aviv or neighboring cities).
• Everybody speaks English.
• Many VC’s are located here.
• The local meetup scene is very developed. It’s like a free school, with new and interesting lectures every evening.
• WiFi is just about everywhere.
• It’s a small place, where everybody knows everybody: It’s easy to connect and get connected.
• Cafés are packed with entrepreneurs and dreamers working on their ventures.
• Bars and cafés are open late, sometimes 24h. FUN!
• Many of the embassies and chambers in Israel are located in Tel Aviv.
• Gorgeous beaches, with only a few days of rain per year – perfect weather!
• Great food of any kind.

What Founders Have To Consider:

• The cost of living is quite high.
• Major cultural differences: people here are very opinionated and straightforward. They don’t try to offend you, but will sometimes be brutally honest. For example, saying “this product is bad” is considered as a feedback, not an offensive saying.
• Public transportation is not the best, however, the subway system should be operative in a few years (it is currently being built).
• Expect tough negotiations when talking business with Israelis.

It is a unique mix of one of the most advanced startup ecosystems in the world, combined with the Mediterranean culture. People fall in love with this city because of its interesting matrix of people, culture, food, and business. It’s a must-see place – we’re expecting you 🙂

First Stop: Discover Tel Aviv’s Startup Community

Tel Aviv is the capital city of communities. For every vertical and topic, there are at least few startup communities. Some are local, some are global. As the average Israeli entrepreneur is welcoming and loves to share information, you will probably find it very easy to make new connections.

Facebook Groups:

• SecretTelAviv – Secret Tel Aviv is a space for all Tel Avivis to share their experiences and questions, meet new people, and learn about some of the secrets of this awesome city.
• Startup Stadium – One of the largest Facebook groups in Israel, all about the people of our Startup Nation.
• Q&A for Startups – Knowledge sharing between entrepreneurs. Very insightful group.
• Israel Innovation Community – The purpose of this group is to provide a platform for Israeli startups, entrepreneurs, investors, venture capitalists, angels, developers, researchers and recruiters to network, collaborate in order to strengthen Israel’s growing innovation scene.
• Israeli Product Managers – The place to meet, greet, support and talk to other Israeli product managers.
• Machine & Deep Learning Israel
• Internet of Things (IoT) Israel

Regular Events & Meetups:

• Blockchain Israel – Anything you wish to learn about the Blockchain technology, delivered by the best speakers.
• PitchTonight – The perfect place to learn and test your pitch!
• GarageGeeks –  GarargeGeeks is an Israel-based not-profit physical and virtual space for innovative and creative people to introduce, network, expose, create, brainstorm, innovate and build.
• Fash & Tech –  Fash & Tech is for all of you who deal with fashion in a technological environment – online retailers, virtual fitting, styling platforms, e-commerce platforms, 3D technologies, developers and everyone else interested in the meeting point of fashion and technology.
• WIX tech Talks – The giant Israeli company Wix is hosting meetups about tech, open to the public.
• UX Salon – UX Salon is a group that gathers to inspire and educate one another. Join them if you’re interested in collaborating with others and contributing to ideas on User Experience and Design.
• Startup Grind –  Startup Grind is a global startup community designed to educate, inspire, and connect entrepreneurs. They host monthly events in 250 cities and 100 countries featuring successful local founders, innovators, & investors.
• Yazamiot (“Female entrepreneurs”) – A women entrepreneurship forum for Israeli technological female entrepreneurs to meet, link, share ideas and help each other.
• Entrepreneurship on the bar – The most interesting speakers of the nation giving free talks at Tel Aviv’s bars.
• WMN – Women founders – One of the most significant groups of female founders.
• CMO Confessions – Your go-to-group regarding startups and marketing.
• 8200 EISP (Entrepreneurship and Innovation Support Program) – 8200 is one of the most luxurious programs for entrepreneurs.
• Rise TLV – Fintech –  One of the strongest FinTech hubs in Israel.
• Israel’s FoodTech Community –  Everything related to the FoodTech industry.

Yearly Or Major Events, Festivals, Conferences:

• DLD – Israel’s largest HiTech conference, happening once a year usually around September.
• IATI MIXiii Biomed 2018 – The BioMed Conference and Exhibition has positioned itself as the main annual meeting place for players of Israel’s healthcare industry with their colleagues from around the globe.
• iNNOVEX – In order to encourage Israeli creativity and innovation, a long list of leading HiTech companies joined hands and initiated the annual international innovation conference called iNNOVEX. It focuses on promoting innovation in the Israeli HiTech industry, in academic research facilities and, more specifically, in young companies involved with advanced technologies.
• The Journey – Journey is one of the most prestigious annual business conferences in Israel, featuring startups and leading companies from the technology industry.
• Microsoft Tech Summit – Build your cloud and infrastructure skills at Microsoft’s Tech Summit, a free, two-day training event for IT professionals and developers.

Volunteering Possibilities:

There are many internship programs here. You can ‘use’ them in order the get the feeling of how it’s like to work for a startup, meet new people and acquire new business skills. That’s an awesome opportunity to check the field and feel the TLV vibe.

• Israel Tech Challenge – Israel Tech Challenge (ITC) specializes in providing a combination of classroom learning & industry experience. ITC is the only campus in Israel that offers both training and job placement assistance in the Israeli industry.
• Masa – Founded in 2014, Masa Israel Journey is designed for young adults (18-30). It offers a diverse portfolio of studies abroad, internship, service learning, or Jewish studies programs that are designed to help you grow — as a person, a professional, and a leader.
• Taglit-Birthright – This is a not-for-profit educational organization that sponsors free 10-day heritage trips to Israel for young adults (18-26) of Jewish heritage. Birthright Excel is a 10-week summer program where students can either create a venture or intern with a business.
• TAMID – Founded in 2008, TAMID is connecting students at top American universities. This is achieved through a comprehensive curriculum geared towards the sustained continuous engagement of business-minded students from all disciplines consisting of an educational program, a student-managed investment fund, a consulting practice, and a summer fellowship in Tel Aviv that sends interns to Israeli startups.

Second Stop: Park At A Coworking Space In Tel Aviv

While the city’s 1,700 cafés are packed with aspiring entrepreneurs and service providers, the shared-space scene is flourishing as well. There are dozens of locations where you can park your laptop and bring your business dream to reality. These are designed to prosper your creativity and give you the coffee needed as well.

There are 2 main search engines that can help you find the perfect spot: Spacing.co.il and pickspace.net

• AYEKA – A beautiful coworking space, right between Yafo and Tel Aviv, which has a swimming pool, a gym, and great, friendly environment.
• MIXER Work & Lounge – Located inside the city’s vibrant Conventions Center, it’s a state of the art office space spaciously designed, alongside a luxurious business lounge.
• Merkspace – With several locations in Israel and the Netherlands, Merkspace is a space which is specifically designed for aspiring creators.
• Campus Tel Aviv – Campus is Google’s space for entrepreneurs to learn, connect, and build companies that will change the world. At Campus, entrepreneurs get unparalleled access to mentorship and training led by their local startup community, experienced entrepreneurs, and teams from Google.
• WMN – WMN is a coworking space and ecosystem for female entrepreneurs. It’s where women launch ventures, do business and get inspired.
• Urban Place – Cool collaborative workspace, located in one of the greatest areas for business and startups, with high-quality services.
• Mindspace – Beautiful workspaces for teams of all sizes, from entrepreneurs to early-stage startups to small businesses. Great style, communal kitchens, and dedicated services.
• SOSA – Founded in 2013, SOSA is a global network of tech innovation hubs with a unique, multipronged approach to innovation. SOSA’s specialty is the combination of startups, entrepreneurs, corporations, and investors.
• WeWork – The world famous WeWork currently has 5 (!) locations in Tel Aviv alone.

Third Stop: Tank Your Finances In Tel Aviv

With 6€b to 8€b exits a year, the Israeli startup scene is an international hub for investors of all kinds and sizes. With Tel Aviv as the country’s business capital, most of venture capital firms have offices in the city or next to it. Most startup funding in Israel comes from local angels and VC’s, but there are quite a few international funds as well.

Incubators:

Tel Aviv doesn’t have a lot of incubators, as they are usually located farther regions of the country.

• TheTime – TheTime is a technological incubator, is based on the following investment platforms – Seed investments, Pre Series A & Series A investments.
• Techcode China Israel Incubator – Techcode Incubator is the first Chinese incubator in Israel, dedicated to helping startups to enter the Chinese market. Techcode’s key focus areas are Artificial Intelligence, Medical Devices and the network has also launched a focus on Smart Mobility recently.
• Samurai House – Established in 2008, Samurai Incubate Inc. is an early-stage Japanese Venture Capital firm and the first Incubator in Japan; with branches in Tokyo and in Tel Aviv, Samurai Incubate has invested in over 120 startups, including 29 Israeli startups. Samurai Incubate Israel, operating since 2014, is the first branch of Samurai Incubate outside of Japan.

Accelerators:

• 500 Startups – A program designed for pre-seed and seed stage companies, to develop a systematic approach to reach product-market fit, and to assist founders with sales, marketing, and distribution.
• 8200EISP – A unique non-profit accelerator program that turned dozens of startups from an idea into running businesses.
• IBM Alpha Zone Accelerator – IBM Alpha Zone Accelerator is the first IBM’s startup accelerator. It offers a 20-week-long professional and deep immersion program for post Seed & Series A funded startups.
• The Hive – Unique program for newcomers.
• The Junction – The Junction is Israel’s first acceleration program for seed companies, owned and operated by F2 Capital.
• Capsula.Studio – Smart Mobility accelerator & innovation center.
• KamaTech – A unique and innovative program to integrate the ultra-orthodox community into the HiTech ecosystem, and to invigorate entrepreneurship within the Haredi population in Israel.
• Sigmalabs Accelerator – Sigmalabs offer a top-notch program without taking equity from startups. They have high rates of success and have a good reputation in the Israeli ecosystem.
• DRIVE (Fastlane) – DRIVE is nurturing top Smart Mobility startups through its acceleration program, FastLane.
• HAC – Herzliya Accelerator Center – They offer relevant startups POCs at urban environment, top mentors etc.
• Hybrid Accelerator – Hybrid accelerator promotes startups that have at least one Arab co-founder.

Crowd Investing Platforms:

• Exit Valley – ExitValley is the first crowd investing platform to fund early-stage startups and small businesses.
• Pipelbiz

Angel Investors:

• Gigi Levi is a business executive and angel investor who works primarily with internet, software and gaming companies. He is currently involved with various startup companies including SimilarWeb, Plarium, myThings, Hola, MyHeritage, and Kenshoo.
• Tal Barnoach has been a seed investor in companies such as Qumranet (acquired by Redhat), Crossrider (acquired by The Market). Tal is currently on the boards of Beamr, Idomoo, Anodot, Roomer, IVY, Tailor Brands, CoCycles and Deep. Tal served in the Israeli Special Intelligence Unit of the IDF and is a Tel-Aviv University graduate.
• Yaron Carni is the Founder of Maverick Ventures (Israel). Prior to that, Yaron founded the Tel Aviv Angel Group – a Boutique Angel Group of several hand picked value added individuals from the US, Canada and Europe that invest privately in a variety of Israeli based companies. The first investment he made, in LabPixies was the first Israeli company bought by Google. Yaron served as the board member of the startup companies the group invests in. He invested in and was the Director of Business Development of Contextin and served on it’s Board. The Tel Aviv Angel Group’s holdings in Contextin were sold to Spark. Yaron also invested in and served on the board of Vaultive, an innovative information security company based in Tel Aviv. TAAG’s holdings in Valutive were also sold. Prior to that, he was the first investor (with his group) and Director of Business Development in LabPixies which is the first company Google Inc. acquired in Israel and was it’s Director of Business Development.
• Amit Gilon Amit Gilon is an Angel investor serving as an active Board Member at several different startups. He previously served as Senior Vice President of Business Development at Ginger Software. Before that role, Gilon was the VP and Director of Marketing at BrainPOP, an influential ed-tech company. Today, Amit is a Board Member and Angel for several startups, including: TestFairy, SimpleQL, Makeree, Webyclip and Otonomic.

Venture Capital Investors:

• Glilot Capital is a seed and early-stage venture fund that invests in Israelis entrepreneurs. Glilot backs teams that develop sophisticated technologies, particularly in the areas of cybersecurity and enterprise software.
• Entrée Capital provides multi-stage funding for innovative startups and companies, across multiple sectors and sizes, all over the world. The fund invests from seed to growth stage, both directly and through venture capital/private equity funds, in order to best achieve its strategy and coverage in terms of sector, stage, and geography. Entrée Capital was founded by successful entrepreneurs with a track record of having successfully invested in and exited over 20 businesses on five continents in the past decade.
• Rhodium is a private investment firm that invests in early-stage ventures in Israel, New York, and Silicon Valley. Its mission is to identify and partner with the most promising entrepreneurs in order to turn their ideas into thriving, industry-leading companies that will make a difference in the world. Rhodium focuses on high-growth, cutting-edge opportunities in the fields of internet, new-media, mobile, and new technologies in general.
• Aleph is a startup VC with the opportunity, resources, and desire to redefine the kind of support entrepreneurs and the local Israeli ecosystem can expect from a venture capital firm. To this end, Aleph seeks to use its resources to build a series of scalable products and services that will help entrepreneurs build a large Israeli company and succeed on a global stage. Aleph has been fortunate to be involved with big, globally scalable businesses, such as Conduit, Wix, and Aternity.
• TLV Partners is a venture capital firm dedicated to investing in innovative seed and A-round startups in the mobile, marketing, internet of things, and analytics sectors. The firm looks not only to invest, but also to partner and get involved with the startups they invest in.
• YL Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm founded to address the changing venture capital financing landscape. The firm invests in cyber security, cloud computing, big data, and Software-as-a-Service software companies, with a particular focus on the Israeli market. YL Ventures accelerates the evolution of its portfolio companies through strategic advice and operational execution based in Silicon Valley.
• Grove Ventures is an early-stage fund focused on technologies and solutions in the areas of IoT, cloud, and big data. It supports Israeli startups throughout their inception and growth, providing all the support needed to shape and build successful global businesses, including capital, expertise, networks, and a shared place for creative work. Grove was established by the serial entrepreneur and investor – Dov Moran.
• O.G Tech Ventures is a $100M VC launched in May 2017, focusing on early growth, technology-based, innovative Israeli related startups operating in big markets being disrupted. It’s a unique VC with a single LP – Eyal Ofer, headed by a single Managing Partner – Roy Oron, and supported by a local team and having access to a vast global network.

Fourth Stop: Seek Further Advice & Opportunities In Tel Aviv

• The local coin is the shekel (₪), and credit cards are accepted almost everywhere.
• Electric outlets are different than the European or America ones. Make sure you have an adapter or buy one here. Here’s what we mean.
• The dress code here is mostly informal – even for business meetings a nice pair of jeans would be just fine, and ties are a fashion item seldom worn.
• ‘Shabbat’: This is the time period between Friday afternoon and Saturday evening. Most business will be closed during that time, except for cafés, restaurants, cinemas and other attractions.
• Find out more information about Tel Aviv on this great website: SecretTelAviv.com
• As a starter, consider arriving as a tourist. You’ll need a passport that is valid for at least six months from the date of your arrival, and this will allow you to stay for up to three months.
• If you’re planning to start a company here, make sure you consult with a local expert, like Nadler Elishar & Co. Generally speaking, it is a fairly simple process which takes only a few days.
• Make sure you buy a SIM card at one of the shops here, with a data plan. It should cost around 15€.
• Markets: Be sure to visit the famous local markets: The Carmel, The Flea Market, and Levinsky st.
• There are tons of places to practice sports: The Yarkon park, the along the beaches, and more.

Come feel the amazing vibe, the beautiful beaches, and this condensed matrix of investors, multinational companies, kick-ass startups and great programs. Are you up for this?

Feel free to contact us!

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Very special thanks to Natan Leibzon for contributing to this Startup City Guide!

The Startup City Guides are like communities – they constantly change and grow. Make sure to check for updates and if you have something to add or want to publish one for your city, get in touch right away!
And don’t forget to enrich the startup ecosystem by creating your company profile at StartUs!

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