Overview

Gender

male

Investor Type

Investment Partner,Angel

Michael is a General Partner at Aleph, an early stage venture capital fund with $850M under management. Aleph focuses on partnering with great Israeli entrepreneurs to build large, meaningful companies and impactful global brands. Since its founding in 2013, Aleph has invested in over 50 companies (not all announced) including Lemonade (NYSE: LMND), Frank (acquired JPM), Melio, Healthy.io, JoyTunes, Fabric, Honeybook and Bringg.

Prior to Aleph, Michael was a General Partner at Benchmark Capital, which he joined in July 2005, and where he continues as the partner responsible for Benchmark’s Israeli portfolio. Michael has focused on internet and software-enabled service investments since 1995. He has invested in and served on the boards of some of Israel’s leading companies and startups, such as Conduit, Gigya (Acquired SAP), Picturevison (acquired: EK), SeekingAlpha, Shopping.com (Nasdaq: SHOP, acquired: EBAY), Tradeum (acquired: VERT), and Wix (Nasdaq: WIX), and Wework (NYSE: WE).

Since 2006, Michael has been writing the blog “Six Kids and a Full Time Job,” on topics ranging from politics to technology, Judaism and macroeconomics. He was a contributor to TheMarker, a Hebrew-language daily business newspaper, and is the author of the “Hummus Manifesto,” the seminal piece on Israel’s innovation scene. Michael has also published numerous books, including The Vanishing Jew, Ben Barukh, and The Tree of Life and Prosperity. He has published two additional books in Hebrew which are due out in English in the coming years: Everyone Can Be Moses and Roaring Tribe. Michael also lectures frequently on venture capital, Israel and entrepreneurship. He is the Chairman of HaShomer Hachadash and sits on the board of Yeshivat Har Etzion. Michael founded the Nevo network, a professional network organization that integrates immigrants to Israel into the high tech ecosystem and serves as the organization's active Chairman. Michael lives in Jerusalem with his wife and eight children.