My Journey With 20 Israeli Women Entrepreneurs To The Silicon Valley

My Journey With 20 Israeli Women Entrepreneurs To The Silicon Valley
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Guest post by Rotem Geslevich, Head of Hi-Tech Business Development at PwC Israel

Three months ago, I met with Darya Henig Shaked at PwC's offices in Tel Aviv. Darya told me that she had a vision of organizing a mission of promising Israeli female entrepreneurs to the Silicon Valley. Then and there, I knew that I was going to do everything to make this vision come true. As PwC came on board, I found myself part of a panel that went through 180 applications to select a group of 20.

This mission was especially important for me. As Head of Hi-Tech Business Development at PwC Israel, I work closely with entrepreneurs, helping them navigate through fundraising, capitalize on opportunities, and introduce them to potential clients and strategic partners. I meet with a lot of entrepreneurs – an average of 400 startups a year. Unfortunately, only 10% of them are women.

After much preparation, our journey began with a 16 hours' flight from Tel Aviv to San Francisco. We were about to start a week full of meetings with investors, tech companies of all sizes, startups and serial entrepreneurs. For me, this was a return to where I spent a year studying for my Masters at UC Berkeley, so I was overjoyed. This time around, I came back to the Bay Area as part of my job in Tel Aviv, excited to meet the local ecosystem and help open doors to Israeli women entrepreneurs.

PwC Israel

The following days included a visit at Facebook, where we attended a panel of women leaders, a mentor workshop at Google, a women panel at Intel, riveting lectures at Stanford and Singularity University, an event at Tech Aviv Palo Alto (with Lior Ron, Co-Founder of Otto), meetings with different venture capitals and many others

As the ever-present theme of our journey was women entrepreneurs, a big question came to mind: how come there are so few of them? For despite the high amount of innovation and number of startups, women in Silicon Valley are still few and far between. There are hardly any women CEOs to be found, and only a handful of VC partners. In fact, Sequoia Capital has just recently appointed the first US female investing partner. And, as I mentioned earlier, this under representation of women is also true to the Israel tech scene.

That begs the question: Should women get preferential treatment? Are we considered feminists for asking for equal opportunities?

This is exactly the point addressed by Tina Sharkey, Partner at Sherpa Capital, in an extremely interesting panel at Bloomberg beta, when she said, "I'm not a feminist, I'm a humanist." I personally relate to this point of view. The goal of the week was definitely not bra burning, but rather, to give talented women equal chance and empower them to take their businesses to the next level.

Tina went on to say that women pay a high "mommy tax", not "women tax". I looked around me and realized that more than half of those in the room were mothers. They left their kids in Israel for a week or two – a big deal for them – but something that would rarely be a consideration when a man goes on a work-related trip.

Rotem Geslevich, co-partner of Israeli Women Entrepreneur mission to the Silicon Valley

Rotem Geslevich, co-partner of Israeli Women Entrepreneur mission to the Silicon Valley

PwC Israel

Laura Gomez, CEO at Atipica, showed us that although fundraising might be challenging for women, a good idea and the right attitude can take you a long way. She said that in her case, investors had every reason to reject her bid based on the unwritten rules of the VC industry: she is a Latina, an immigrant, sole founder, and of course, a woman. She pointed out, however, that being single allowed her to be in all the networking events in the evenings – unlike many women with children – and that gave her an edge. We were all shaken a bit by this notion, but knew exactly what she was talking about.

This week made me realize how many challenges women entrepreneurs face and that made me even more proud of each one of our group members and their achievements, before and after that week.

Tali Av-zuk, Co-Founder & CEO at VALA, who I met for the first time at Barclays Techstars demo day, only two weeks after she gave birth, grew her startup and achieved major milestones. Orly Shoavi, Co-Founder & CEO at SafeDK, has walked a path dominated by males since her days at Unit 8200 (an elite tech-intensive military intelligence unit) and her choice of studying computer science. SafeDK serves over 4 million active users worldwide a month and has just completed its A round. Rachel Batish, Co-founder & CRO at ZUZNOW and Adi Eckhouse Barzilai, Co-Founder & CEO at Realface, relocated to New York last year with their families as part of their companies' international growth. Eynat Guez, Co-Founder and CEO at Papaya Global, enrolled ten international clients and became the Airbnb for corporate clients, enabling services through technology. Iris Tsidon, Co-Founder & CEO at OKAPI, just hired her first employee in the US and signed revenue share agreement with NetSuite. The list goes on.

PwC Israel

Beyond the important empowerment aspect of our mission, the journey had some very tangible results for some of our members. "My goals for this week were limited to having networking opportunities and understand the dynamics of the startups scene in the Silicon Valley. What I actually achieved exceeded my wildest dreams." said Smadar Landau, CEO at Feelter, "This was an eye-opening experience. It helped me realize that I can take my startup higher and faster. As a result, I'm currently making a significant change in my business plan. I switched my business advisors and I even raised $500K and closed my $4M round during that week".

This trip, no doubt, gave me inspiration to dream of opening my own company. Though, for now, I will continue to be a woman intrapreneur at PwC Israel.

* This post was written by Rotem Geslevich Head of Hi-Tech Business Development at PwC Israel

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