"It is harder to raise money today, but your long-term prospects are much rosier"

“People often say it was a great time to start a company two years ago, and it's true, mostly because it was easy to raise money,” said Bessemer Venture Partners Partner Adam Fisher, speaking to CTech at Calcalist and Poalim Hi-Tech’s Startup+ competition in collaboration with the Zell Entrepreneurship Program at Reichman University. “Today, it is harder to raise money, but if you do, you're going to have much less competition. You're probably going to be a very efficient company and your long-term prospects are much rosier.”

An American venture capital fund, Bessemer Venture Partners is one of the largest investors in Israeli high-tech. Bessemer has invested in more than 60 Israeli startups in a diverse array of sectors over the past three decades, including Fiverr, Habana, and Wix. Its newest fund, managed by Fisher, focuses on Seed and early growth stage companies.

“There are entrepreneurs that are doing a lot with very little,” says Fisher, who served as a judge at the competition. “They are doing something that's not necessarily mainstream, but not completely different. The problem with things that are completely different is that it becomes very hard to recruit and also hard to raise money. The problem with very mainstream is that you're going to have lots of competition and it's hard to differentiate. So, I look for things that are a little bit ahead of their time, but not so far ahead that nobody can really relate to it.”

You can watch the full interview in the video above.