Israel Venture Capital 2.0

Broken Foot 2.0 (or Stupidity 1.0)

Our business is full of mistakes. Every day, I take part in some small or big decision, and by definition, those decisions include some major mistakes. I guess that's part of life. However, the key is to learn from the mistakes you make, and improve. Making the same mistake twice is unforgivable. Making the same mistake twice is being stupid.

18 Months ago I broke my left foot. Ran down the steps in our house, slipped, and cracked my left foot. I wrote about it in my blog.

Well, yesterday it almost happened again. I Ran down the same stairs, slipped in the same way, and landed on the same left foot. It was painful, and my foot grew to a size of a troll foot. Luckily for me, it's not broken, just a strain on the ligaments. I still have to walk in one of those removable casts.

This is a classic example of someone making the exact same mistake twice, and that's both unforgivable and stupid. Hopefully there won't be a 3^rd time.

The Adventures of Seinfeld and Bill

It was a small piece in yesterday's news: Microsoft will partner with Seinfeld to create a set of commercials around Vista. Jerry is hired to fight back the very successful ad campaign, PC vs. Mac. Although Jerry Seinfeld is great, he is not Superman (first appearance), and as such, I am not sure he can help Microsoft fight the bad image of Vista. The reality is simple: Vista is a heavy, non-friendly operating system. It's a great example of "perception is reality".

But all this reminded me of something else. Few years ago, Seinfeld was hired for an American Express ad campaign. It was an online only campaign, with rather long video clips (5 minutes), something that can only be presented online. It was called the adventures of Seinfeld and Superman (Second appearance), and I think it was an excellent excellent campaign. First of all, it was funny (see below). And second, it was visionary, coming out years before the online video advertising industry started. Since then, the industry has gone in a different direction. It's not about long video clips, but rather short videos, pre-rolls, etc. (Disclaimer: Gemini is an investor in Adap.tv, a leader in this space).

Let's hope Seinfeld and Microsoft will be as good as Seinfeld and Superman (Final Appearance). And if you have never seen it, check out below.

Gemini’s new investment - Confidela

Today we announced our most recent investment, a startup company called Confidela. The company is in stealth mode, but I can say that they are developing security products that will be delieverd in a SaaS model (Software as a Service). From the official press release:

"Confidela, which is currently operating in stealth mode, is a Software as a Service (SaaS) company that was founded in 2007 by a group of entrepreneurs led by Noam Livnat. Livnat who is a graduate of an elite technological unit (8200), was a senior product manager at Cyota, and led its layered authentication products until its acquisition by RSA. Livnat was joined recently by EMC's Moti Rafalin who came on board as co-founder and CEO. At EMC, Moti Rafalin led the acquisition of nLayers, a Gemini portfolio company, and later on led nLayers as the application management business unit general manager. Rafalin who spent 6 years at EMC in various leadership positions is a graduate of the Harvard Business School. The team was also joined by Yuval  Yaeger, VP R&D, who is a graduate of Mamram and 8200 and who until recently led the development of one of CA's leading security products (CA ACCESS CONTROL)."

Gemini lead this round together with Shlomo Kramer, founder & CEO of Imperva. I am quite excited about this investment, and I hope it will fulfill its great promise. I will definitely write about Confidela again, once the company launches its product. In the mean time, good luck to Moti, Noam, and Yuval.