Israel’s move to the peripheries can mirror the American city exodus

“One of the things we find is we are seeing a lot of high-quality talent leaving the central area,” said Lior Susan, CEO of Eclipse Ventures. As someone who was born and raised in the Kinneret region, he left Israel to live in California in 2012 but has since returned to try to establish a tech hub where he once lived in the Kinneret.

He continued: “It's true for the Bay area - it's not only the Bay area anymore, but there are also really smart people in Austin, outside of New York, and Arizona starting companies. It's also true in Israel. We're seeing there is a high rate of talent outside of Tel Aviv that are starting companies, and we want to make sure we are seeing these companies - even when they are not in the cities.”

Today, Susan runs Eclipse Ventures, a venture capital firm that focuses on the intersection of technology and agriculture, logistics, supply chains, or anything else that has a ‘physical’ element - something unique to a landscape like the Kinneret. “When you think about water technology, or agriculture technology, or a new type of food, there is just a great place with 50-60 years of domain expertise. Now you bring the technology and there is interesting magic happening,” he said.

You can watch the entire exchange in the video above.