More than 1,500 people and investors from around the world came to OurCrowd's annual congress for entrepreneurs and investors held at ICC Jerusalem.
OurCrowd is considered the world's largest crowds recruitment company, with nearly 6,000 investors from 70 countries. From the Israeli Angle: the company has invested close to 80 million Dollars in 52 Israeli startup companies to date.
The congress was held at ICC Jerusalem and the winners of the StartUp2 competition – the applications and startup competition – were announced.
During the congress spoke Mayor of Jerusalem Nir Barkat, CEO of Bank Hapoalim Zion Kenan and founder and CEO of OurCrowd Jon Medved, who was once considered the most influential America to Israel's economy, who also gave the winners their certificates. Medved mentioned that the chosen startups were the most innovative and interesting of all ten projects that were presented to the company, and that the fact they came from different fields proves that the world of innovation and initiative in Israel is continuing to grow.
Apart from the competition the congress also included lectures, plenary sessions, displays, a performance by singer Amir Dadon and lots of good food.
The startups who received an investment from the OurCrowd fund are:
1. Taranis company, which is developing a platform for farmers that will help them minimize risks and to proactively detect plant diseases and insect plagues.
This service will be accessible to the farmer from everywhere – PC, Tablet or mobile, and offers the farmer all the relevant data he needs: a combination of satellite images, weather reports and data from sensors the company provides and he installs at his property. "We were in fact the only company working in agritech – technology for agriculture," entrepreneur Ofir Schlam said, "we also came already having a proposal from a fund that deals with agriculture, which inspectedus thoroughly beforehand and gave us their blessing, so that really helped."
2. Intendu company, which is working on an innovative computer software to rehabilitate the brain for home or clinic use, and is actually developing video games designed to train the brain for people with cognitive problems. The company was also rewarded with 200,000 NIS, as part of the audience favorite Prize, courtesy of Bank Hapoalim. "I saw the enthusiasm and interest in the room, since we are a company that has a goal to do something good in the world and not just make money," entrepreneur Dr. Son Preminger said, " that was a bit of a challenge for them, but that it is a challenge they want to go up against."
ICC Jerusalem is accustomed to hosting these types of congresses and it showed here that the experience and professionalism were a crucial factor in holding this impressive and grand congress which gave thousands of participants an opportunity to enjoy an international atmosphere.
