Traditional VC Firm Viola Meets Equity Crowdfunding Firm OurCrowd

Successful entrepreneurs prefer established venture capital firms, Daniel Cohen, a partner at Israeli early-stage firm Viola Ventures, said Tuesday on a panel discussion with founder and CEO of Jerusalem-based equity crowdfunding firm OurCrowd Ltd., Jonathan Medved. The panel was hosted by Calcalist journalist Meir Orbach as part of CTech by Calcalist's investors' event It Tech Two to Tango, held at the events space of LABS, a coworking space located on the top floors of the Azrieli Sarona Tower in Tel Aviv.

“New kinds of venture capital firms, anything that is innovative and different, attracts a certain kind of entrepreneur but not the top 10%,” Cohen said. “We are still a small part of the market, but we happen to be the most active investor in the country by far,” Medved replied. “We are not here to thwart anyone’s business model, we just want to allow a large number of people who have been frozen out of this to participate and it is a good thing for everyone,” he said.