IVA 2007

Last week I've been to IVA 2007, the annual conference of the Israeli Venture Association. The conference which attracts most of Israel's VCs (And entrepreneurs...) was focused this time on building large companies (Israel has a lot of successful exits of small and medium companies, but just a handful of really large hi-tech corporations).

The conference featured some impressive keynotes from Shay Agassi (ex-SAP), Gil Schwed (Checkpoint) and Stanley Fischer. Some lectures/panels were very interesting, others quite obvious, but all in all a good balance. Anyway, I guess it was all worth it for the mingling, and also for Alex Vieux's direct style of interviewing (For example, in a question to Israel Makov, ex-CEO of Teva: "So, why did you leave Teva? Were you tired, or were they tired of you?...")

Anyway, the major trend everyone is talking about (surprise, surprise) is CleanTech. In Agassi's lecture he basically said "drop everything you're doing now - go to CleanTech..." others said it less bluntly, but in any case this is definitely one of the directions VCs in Israel will go to. But all of you software/Web 2.0 entrepreneurs don't have anything to worry about - there are plenty of interest and actual investments in these fields...

Another trend that could be seen is the involvement of the VC/Hi-Tech industry in social projects. The exhibition featured mostly social projects intended to help underprivileged kids, teenagers and students.

That's about it - it was definitely a good place to meet some old friends and catch up on today's trends.