Cultural Bridge Creates Venture Gold: Eyal Bino’s Israel-NYC Startup Connection Strategy | Venture Capital Series

Anthony Codispoti : Welcome to another edition of the Inspired Stories podcast where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from their successes and be inspired by how they’ve overcome adversity. My name is Anthony Codispoti and today’s guest is Eyal Bino, founding partner at 97212 Ventures. They are a venture capital firm in New York that invests in Israeli startups, helping them grow globally. With a mission to become the go-to partner for founders, they provide hands-on support to accelerate growth and innovation.

They focus on connecting early-stage companies to the U.S. market, offering funding, guidance, and a strong network of mentors to drive success. Now, Eyal started 97212 in January of 2022 and previously served as a partner at iconic labs while also contributing to Forbes. He has a background in international relations, business, and a passion for nurturing tech entrepreneurs. Under his leadership, the company has built a reputation for creating category-divining companies ready to scale. Eyal’s hands-on approach has already led to notable achievements with several portfolio companies gaining international recognition. He has nearly two decades of experience supporting startups and continues to be a driving force in the venture capital ecosystem. Now, before we get into all that good stuff, today’s episode is brought to you by my company, AdBack Benefits Agency, where we offer very specific and unique employee benefits that are both great for your team and fiscally optimized for your bottom line. One recent client was able to add over $900 per employee per year in extra cash flow by implementing one of our innovative programs. Results vary for each company and some organizations may not be eligible.

To find out if your company qualifies, contact us today at adbackbenefits.com. Back to our guest today, the founding partner of 97212 Ventures. Eyal, I appreciate you making the time to share your story today. Thanks for having me. Eyal, let’s go back a bit. What first drew you into the world of funding and startups?

Eyal Bino : Great question. I spent probably about 90% of my professional career in New York. I did both of my degrees here, my bachelor in communications at a school called Kane in New Jersey. Then I studied my MA in international relations and business at NYU. Then following that, I went to lead the business development for a company in the education space, the e-learning space called BrainBot.

I spent about four or five years there. Over time, a bunch of entrepreneurs reached out to me and said, hey, can you make me an introduction to a potential customer? I’m raising capital. Do you know anyone in the venture scene? Which lawyer is right for my company? I’m trying to decide if to register the company in either Israel or the US or whether it’s a company from elsewhere.

Anthony Codispoti : I’m getting all those questions. Why were they asking you these questions, Eyal? What was in your background up to that point?

Eyal Bino : I ran based on a natural networker. People either heard about me, they came from family or friends, they’re just kind of word of mouth. I think my style is always to be helpful. It gets harder when you scale a business and an adventure. Now I’m looking at my email and I think I respond to 100 emails a day and I steal it like a thousand in the inbox.

It gets harder. I think what’s interesting is New York just started to formulate itself as a tech hobby. It was like 2010. We worked just started. A lot of people were laid off working in one of the banks or in a financial industry and went to the Ace Hotel, which is a hotel in New York.

Basically, they sat there all day and started coding or talking about their ideas. I realized that this is an interesting moment in time where New York is not going to be the same. It’s not going to be just a financial scene.

It’s not going to be into just ad tech or fashion. I started consulting. I’ll consult. I’ll take a little retainer and I’ll do my best to help companies grow, whether they’re at a seed stage or at a run stage.

I think over this period of time, I realized a couple of things. A, it takes way longer for a company that’s not based here to build trust, to get not just an introduction to a customer but building the trust of a customer. So they need someone who really understands the local scene, understand the culture, etc. And two, I think I have probably the right passion and talent to help founders who are not based in New York or the US, ease the migration and the expansion to the US. So that led me initially to build a program for international entrepreneurs looking to expand to New York, which we can dive

Anthony Codispoti : into, and then build an accelerator and currently running a VC, a proper VC fund. So it’s been a natural progression for me from 2010, 15 years ago, trying to help founders to kind of just kind of get a foot in the door in New York, to now really putting a big enough check for me at least in the right capital to help companies get funded, grow and kind of build, hopefully, a long-lasting business. And how does your work at Iconic Labs, starting back in 2015, kind of fit into this whole picture?

Eyal Bino : It’s a great question. So between 2011 and 2015, I ran a program called Global Innovator. It was basically sourcing companies from all over the world at seed stage, looking to expand to the US market and specifically New York. We sourced hundreds of companies every year and kind of selected five every quarter to come to New York, pitch to investors, customers, attract talent, etc.

And then at some point, I was like, okay, well, I’m getting most of the best deal flow or the best companies from Israel because I’m Israeli and I have a much better network there than in Europe or in Canada or in South America. So back then, I had a kind of a network of mentors who I teamed up with companies who were selected to present in the program. And one of them was a guy named Ari Avikasis. And Ari was an entrepreneur. He was an investor and he was born in Israel.

He moved here when he was two years old. And he basically kind of reached out to me and said, hey, you know, why don’t we just build an accelerator just focused on Israeli companies that we can give them kind of a small check and then give them space and then really work with them for like, you know, six or 12 months on really expanding to New York, building the right kind of footprint in the US market, getting to the first five, six years customers, you know, so they can actually attract the attention of local VCs and then be able to build a business. So that was kind of the journey that led me to build iconic. And then with iconic, I think I was able to kind of bring the best of all worlds, meaning I was able to source and get into some interesting, you know, talent from Israel. I was able to then bring them to New York and then help them with connections and interactions to potential customers and kind of like use my network to put them in front of local investors. And then I think kind of slowly but surely you see that the progression of companies is real once they have the right partner locally who can help them move, you know, from kind of pre-seed to seed, from seed to way, etc.

Anthony Codispoti : So your work with iconic continues today is still ongoing?

Eyal Bino : So yes and no. So iconic was born in 2015. We raised about $3 million in capital. Most of it has been deployed to about 50 companies. So we invested about 50 companies over five years or 10 per year. And then in 2020, I think we looked at the market and said, well, you know, companies need more, they need more capital, they need more talent, things are getting much more expensive.

So the model really didn’t make any sense to continue it. So out of the 50 companies, about 35 are still alive. We have one unicorn, a company called Connect Team in the employee engagement space.

And then probably about another 15 companies raised over $20 million in capital and are doing extremely well. So we, you know, I do portfolio management, meaning, you know, manage their relationship with the founders, helping them where I can. And also, ideally, at some point, some of them have an authority event, meaning either an exit or a merge or an IPO. And then hopefully, you know, it results in a nice return for our investors.

Anthony Codispoti : And so the companies that you were investing in with Iconic, they’re all tech related, either hardware or software, is that right?

Eyal Bino : Yeah, so it’s all tech related. I think what’s really interesting in an accelerated model is that because the check is small, you can actually make a lot of experiments. So at some point, we invested in a drone company, that actually company that went into the Israeli stock market at some point. We’re investing in a crypto company that, you know, after a few months went nowhere, but we wanted to kind of like, just experiment with different things. I think in general, we invested in enterprise software, so Israeli talent, because of the army, I think they have a natural talent for building software that the enterprise needs or likes to use. We also invested in some companies in the healthcare space, where I think healthcare, as we know it, is changing. And then some areas that are either proctech or fintech, logistics, areas that really need to move from pen and paper or Excel to the modern world.

Anthony Codispoti : So you’re talking about $3 million that’s almost fully deployed now across 50 companies. It’s not a lot of money for each of these companies. And you kind of framed it as, hey, these are experiments.

Let’s throw, you know, some different things against the wall and see what sticks. So was the idea for 97212 to kind of take the same idea, but be able to invest more and get more involved? Or what’s sort of the connection there? What kind of bridge those two things?

Eyal Bino : Yeah, you know, so actually, so maybe I didn’t frame it correctly.

Anthony Codispoti : So we worked very hard with the companies because we believed in any, you know, any investment we made, we believe they can be super successful. But I think because it was a small check, it gave us a lot of flexibility, we were like quick to the market, we’re able to like move fast. I think with 97212, which by the way, 97212 came with the idea that a lot of people are like, hey, what’s the meaning of the numbers? I think a lot of Israelis who grew up in my age, look at this, it’s like 90210, which Beverly Hills, if you remember the show back in the day. The idea is 97212, which is Israel country code, and 212, which is New York code or the dialing code. So the idea is like Israel to New York.

I think with the the accelerator, it was really, it’s a small check. At some point, the best companies they need more, right? So they can just like get 20 or 50 or 100, 100,000. And actually, if you look at the market as a whole, there aren’t many accelerators left, right?

There’s a white combinator, there’s tech stars, but I think a lot of the smaller ones have basically realized like they can’t really tap into great talent because the check is smaller, unless maybe there is like a specific industry where there’s expertise or a special network. With 97212, basically realized I need to build two things. One, I need to invest bigger checks. I need to have more capital if I want to be a player in the Israeli tech scene. Israel has a ton of capital right now, a lot of success stories. All the big VCs are in Israel, whether it’s from Israel or in the US or Sequoia has an office in Israel, Excel, Greylock, all the big VCs, they see Israel as, there’s an alpha there.

So if you want to be a player, you got to play with the rules. The other piece is I wanted to build an infrastructure where companies and founders have more access to either talent, potential customers, a potential partner, obviously the venture scene. There’s so much competition, so you really have to try to differentiate yourself from other VCs and other players in the industry. So for me, if founders want to move to New York, ideally I want to be the first investor to want to speak with. And then on top of this, once we invest, we really spend a lot of time working with founders on moving from what I call zero to one.

Because if I’m able to or we’re able to bring them from zero to one, which means from pre-C to C, from C to A, they’ll have a much higher likelihood for success versus just giving them a check and what they call spraying and spraying. I have a founder mentality and I want to bring it to the venture scene. So you made a comment in there where you said VCs see that there’s an alpha in Israel. What do you mean by alpha?

Eyal Bino : So a few weeks ago, I’m not sure if you’re familiar with a company, a company called Wiz, WIZ. It’s a cyber security company focusing on the cloud. It was sold to Google for 32 billion. That company actually was offered about nine months ago to be bought by Google for 23 billion and they said no.

I mean, I don’t know what was the drive behind saying it was 23 billion, but they basically said we think we’re worth more and nine months later, this is the biggest acquisition Google has ever made and this probably is the biggest acquisition of any company, private company. So I think more VCs are looking at the type of talent that exists in Israel. And by the way, there’s now 450 startups who are Israeli with a base in New York. There’s about 30 unicorns, Israeli unicorns based in New York. There’s like hundreds of successful founders coming out of Israel. So I think if you look at, and by the way, the pricing is used to be much cheaper about 10 years ago and now the pricing is as expensive as Silicon Valley, but I think the mentality that grids the passion, I think some of the resilience that Israeli founders have to have in order to build a company versus, you know, in other places around the world, I think makes it very attractive for foreign investors to go to Israel and look for the next WIZ or for the next WIZ, if you remember WIZ was the, you know, kind of the first big success story coming out of Israel. So I think that’s really interesting. I think it’s, you know, if you combine this with where New York is right now when it comes to the state of venture and the New York tech ecosystem as a whole, we think it’s a great combination. And really, I feel I’m very fortunate to be in that, you know, bridge between Israel and New York.

Anthony Codispoti : So are the companies that you’re working with, Ayal, they’re already well established and successful in Israel and now they want to come to New York or the States in general, or are some of them still very early on in their life cycle in Israel as well?

Eyal Bino : So I think it’s a great question. So I’d say most of them are pretty early, either what I call the two guys in the garage, right? They have an idea, they have a deck, then it’s capital to build, you know, kind of an MVP and then deploy it and, you know, bring it to the market and see, you know, what works and what you need to make adjustments. In other cases, we’ll invest in a company where maybe it’s a second timer or a third timer, who’s, you know, built a business before and maybe they already made some progress, maybe they have some capital that, you know, they use from their own capital to kind of get started. And then we come in and we try to help them kind of move the needle and be supportive from, you know, from an Israeli or not Israeli perspective. We only invest in Israeli founders. Typically, we have at least one or two Israeli founders on the team, even if the company is based in the US.

And I’d say half of our companies already started here locally, either in New York, Miami, LA, Seattle. So we tap into Israeli founders, you know, all over the US and not just in Israel. In some cases, it’s a little bit easier because, you know, instead of like trying to kind of go to Israel, find them and then they have to move here. There’s logistical issues, there’s resources, issues, et cetera, the base here and we’re able to kind of work with them, you know, on the market pretty quickly.

Anthony Codispoti : So what, tell me more about sort of the Israeli-US connection. Is it enough for the, like, does the person have to have been born in Israel? Can they just be of Jewish heritage? Sort of like, what are the criteria that you’re looking for? In a moment, we’ll get into sort of more like the business side of things, but just sort of making that kind of distinction. Yeah.

Eyal Bino : So my model basically says, I need at least one Israeli founder who was born and raised in Israel. Right. I can’t have someone who just went to Hebrew school or a Jewish school, right. I need someone to know almost like the slang and the culture, right. Being able to attract talent in Israel because many times the R &D is going to be based in Israel and the sales and marketing is going to be based in the US. That’s kind of the Israeli, if you want to call it kind of the Israeli model. The, you know, and I think for us, what we find great is a combination where the CEO is Israeli, let’s say the company is based here, the CEO is Israeli and the rest of the team can be American and maybe they recruit some Israeli talent in Israel, maybe they recruit more American talent here for marketing and sales and it’s kind of the combination of both worlds.

I think naturally, Israeli is a great technologist. It’s harder for them to tell a story. It’s harder for them to, you know, they basically many times think like, okay, one plus one equals two, but they don’t really understand that you need to actually tell a story that, you know, tells in Israel, these two can really be a billion, right. Like you need to get them excited. You need to get them on board with why you versus, you know, the other founder across the street, right.

So we try to help them, you know, with that. But I think in general, our focus is Israeli companies, Israeli founders and trying to move to the US. By the way, not that many people know what Israel is, is a very small country. There’s really no market there, right. There’s 10 million people who live in Israel. You can’t just build a unicorn by just selling into Israel.

I mean, it’s pretty rare. So by and large, the first market that Israeli startups look into is to build a business in the US where the scale is much bigger, the opportunities are much bigger, and they can really shine if they want, you know, if they build the right business.

Anthony Codispoti : Okay, so now let’s talk about more of the business side of things. What specifically are you looking for in a company that you would bring into your portfolio?

Eyal Bino : Excellent question. So I’m looking for a great team. So we look at it probably like three main curators. A team where there’s complementary skills, a CEO who knows how to tell a story, can build a business, can attract talent, can unify everyone, can, you know, raise capital, etc. And then if it’s, you know, two or three people, if it’s two founders, I think the other founders got to have got to be a CTO, right, someone who is a chief technologist, build technology elsewhere, has the ability to like build, attack him around it, around him, and build a product that’s pretty unique and defensible. And then typically if there’s a third founder, it’s what I call a CPO, a chief product officer, someone who knows how to build a product. Then I look for, you know, if they’ve done something together before, how well do they know each other, right, like all those things come into place when it comes to, you know, kind of building a startup from the ground up, because it’s just, it’s a roller coaster, right, like there’s so many challenges to build a successful startup.

So many things can happen and the idea that you really gonna, you know, you go to work together, you get married is huge, right, because when things get tough, that’s when you really get to know each other, right. So that’s on that. Second thing is the market. How big is the market? How many players are in the market?

Is there a really big opportunity in specific market, in the market you’re trying to sell into? That’s one big piece for us. And then I think the third piece for us is our ability to impact the business. Can we really work with those founders on the water market? Can we help them get their first five customers? Can we see this company raising capital from one of the top VCs in the US and New York specifically?

So we look into our value add and how much we can bring to the table, because if it’s a company where you know, we really don’t have expertise, we don’t want to be just a check, right, like we want to be able to talk about the company, to think about the company everywhere we go. And then the fourth piece is really kind of the Israel-New York connection. We really would love all of our companies to have a footprint in New York, whether it’s by opening an office, having people on the ground, etc. Because this is where we can add the most value. So it’s kind of tied to the third point, which is where do we come in if we’re made an investment in a company.

Anthony Codispoti : And explain a little bit more about why the New York part of the connection is so important. I mean, companies could be all over the place in the US and still kind of be able to make money and have access to the US market.

Eyal Bino : Yeah, so I mean, I think if you look at data and research, being part of an ecosystem that has a lot of opportunities, whether it, you know, whether it comes to venture capital, to raising capital, right, to being able to sell to customers who are locally, New York has everything right now. I mean, if you look at New York, about 10, 15 years ago, maybe there was 100 VCs in New York.

Now you’re looking at hundreds. So there’s so much capital, right? So everywhere you go, you can go into a seed investor, you can tap into great VCs, you’re looking for great opportunities and great founders.

So that’s one piece. And I think we have the network that’s really expanding and kind of it’s a force multiplier, right, to help companies and founders tap into this industry. The second piece is, you know, can you attract great talent on the business side, like marketing, sales, etc.

There’s just a lot of great talent in New York. A lot of people just want to come here. I think there’s something more specific about Israelis. There is an amazing community of founders from Israel in New York. I think the, the funny thing is that in Israel, we can kill each other and we fight about everything.

But when we leave overseas, suddenly we’re like the best friends, we’re a family, we’re going to protect each other. So I think it’s the same on the entrepreneurial side. So a lot of founders who are first timers moved to New York without really knowing anyone, you can see that within a month, they already spoke to like about 100 founders or Israeli who have been here. They tell them, hey, talk to this guy or that guy because you can trust them. Do not work with this agency because they’re going to screw you.

Or those guys on the HR side that were too expensive. So that ability to help and kind of use this as a way to kind of build each other is pretty unique to New York. And I think another aspect that we didn’t talk about, so the time zone difference is I think huge for Israelis. So traditionally, in the early 2000s, you would, when you want to raise capital, you want to build a business and build an office, you typically move to San Francisco or Silicon Valley because this is where the money was. If you look now, and the time difference between Israel and Silicon Valley is 10 hours. So if a CEO is based in the valley at 8 a.m. Silicon Valley time, it’s going to be 6 p.m. Israel time.

So that really creates kind of a gap between those two offices. In New York, you know, you start your day at 8 a.m. It’s still like 3 p.m. in Israel. So you feel still like everyone is working together for a bunch of hours.

But I think, you know, in general, you look at the evolution of New York as a tech ecosystem, it’s incredible to see. You know, I looked at other funds, right? About 10 years ago, there’s a fund called India Adventures, maybe 13 years ago. Their first fund was 1.6 million. They’re now probably under a fifth or sixth fund that’s like 120 or 150 million. And, you know, they’ve generated so many success stories, but they started small, right? So I look at them as kind of a role model for what I’m trying to create, you know, with 972 and 2 and where we can take, you know, this fund in the years to come.

Anthony Codispoti : So even in this age of Zoom, having close physical proximity to each other, each other as well as the investors who are in the city, makes a big deal. Being able to spend time in person, that’s a forced multiplier.

Eyal Bino : It’s huge. It’s huge. You know what’s, you know, we can talk about culture at some point, but Israeli culture is like, you just want to go for coffee. I mean, people in Israel have coffee like 10 times a day, right? They’re like, oh, let’s go talk about life with, you know, over coffee. Let’s meet for coffee.

And I think in the US, it’s a little bit different, right? Like, there’s a lot of Zoom calls, you know, there’s a lot of emailing and texting. And, you know, I think at some point, Zoom is, we have kind of Zoom fatigue right after COVID. And I mean, how much can you share our video, right? Like when you’re not on the podcast, it’s hard.

It’s hard to do this, right? So there’s something about that personal connection and meeting someone face to face. I actually just saw someone on Twitter, a VC, our truly respect, who basically said, I’m moving away from Zoom calls and moving into regular phone calls. So I kind of responded like, welcome to Israel, because this is really the Israeli culture. And it’s, listen, there’s nothing better than meeting someone in person, because this is where you can really get to know someone, right? And that being, you know, the ability to be local and spend time with investors you want to work with, with customers you want to bring on board, the relationship building, there’s really nothing like it that’s being done face to face. So I’m a big proponent of that.

Anthony Codispoti : I’ll say more about what you want people to understand about Israeli culture and the Israeli people.

Eyal Bino : No, it’s, you know, it’s interesting. You know, I saw an interview with someone who’s been to Israel, maybe like once a few weeks ago, and he said, you know, it’s the first time in Israel, but I felt like I’m at home, because people are very welcoming, they’re very warm. Yeah, they’ll let you, if you take a cab, you know, people are beeping at you when the light is just about to be green, like, you know, 15 seconds later, because you’re just in a rush, right? But I think on the same token, you know, people are super helpful, they love life. I think there’s like this, like, you know, we don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow kind of mentality.

So we really have to live every single day, like it’s our last day. And, you know, I think that there is a lot of innovation in Israel. If you look at also like Israel, I think you look at the progress Israel has made with food, with restaurants, with art and culture, you look at Netflix, there’s probably about 15, 20 shows out of Israel at any given time that been bought by Netflix. There’s just like a lot of different dimensions, you look at art, right? There’s a lot of different dimensions to Israel. And I think that unfortunately, you know, given the war and other elements in history, I think a lot of people view Israel as a place of conflict.

And I think that there’s just like so much more than that. And I think all Israelis, at least that I know, really want to continue innovating, continue building and focus on what matters, which is, you know, making the best of life. And I think, you know, my hope is that that’s going to come out of what people view Israel is in years to come, and that we’re going to be, you know, hopefully this war is going to be over very, very soon. And we’re just going to be able to move on and just live life the way we envision.

Anthony Codispoti : Yeah, sometimes, you know, we can get sort of caught up in media portrayals and the sort of the geopolitical portrayals and, you know, not really connect with the actual human beings that are kind of, you know, enduring and living through all these things. So it’s great to have that additional context.

Eyal Bino : And you know, social media is probably the best and worst thing that happened to us, right? Like, because it really shapes our views about everything in life, right? And, you know, misinformation has been, I think, one of the biggest problems that I think a lot of, you know, this generation needs to deal with. And that brings me to kind of the point of like education and building the right narrative, right? And if you bring it to kind of the world of venture and entrepreneurship, telling the right story is, you know, people really need to connect. They really need to, investors need to connect with founders. Sometimes, you know, you meet a VC and you kind of make an introduction to a company and you kind of ask him, like, hey, so what do you think? And he’s like, listen, there’s nothing really bad I can say about the company.

I just didn’t connect with the founder, right? So that connection is something that, you know, I think we all have to strive to do with anyone in our lives, whether it’s with our family, with our kids, with business partners, with, you know, with your life partner. This is just something that probably is not talked about enough and I think it’s becoming more and more important as life kind of, you know, goes by.

Anthony Codispoti : Yeah, I’m glad that you hit on that. I’m a big proponent of, you know, sort of this idea of safe human connection. And it makes the world of difference, you know, whether you’re talking about a business deal or just sort of the way that you move through life with your friends and your family. Yeah, so I appreciate you giving voice to that.

Yeah. I’m curious, you know, from kind of a tech standpoint, you get to see a lot of things come across your desk. You know, some you get excited about and you invest in some, you know, there’s limited bandwidth, limited dollars you have to pass on. But what are some of the bigger trends that you’re seeing and that you’re excited about?

Eyal Bino : So I think just in general, I think some industries are completely being transformed right now. So we look at healthcare, patient engagement, right? Like you see that there’s just a lot of innovation in that area. You look at, you know, we invested in a company called Inner Balance. Inner Balance is what they call HRT. It’s a hormone replacement therapy product where a lot of women in their early 40s and 50s are really being impacted by the physiological process of menopause. They it’s basically a product that been kind of a the ideation and the innovation came from a doctor called Sarah, who basically came up with a product that it’s a cream that helps women kind of lower the impact and the influence of issues that are elements that are come with the idea of just growing older and having a body change, right?

From a hormone spend standpoint. So this is not something that has been done in years past, right? So 20, 30, 50 years ago women just went through it and they went to a doctor and the doctor said, hey, you know, it is what it is. I mean, you’re just going through menopause. But there’s issues with moodiness.

There’s issues with sleep and just longevity in general. So you know, I’m looking at something like this that’s it just opens up a whole new world, right? You look at another area that I like is legal, legal tech, right? So until now you look at the work of lawyers, it’s been reading through documents and listening to audio, etc. We’re investing in a company called Shrial Kit that uses Gen AI to summarize discovery data for defense attorneys. The CEO is a former defense attorney and he basically said, like, I’ve seen what’s going on and lawyers just can’t keep up with all the data that they have to deal with.

And it actually impacts trials, right? So he came and built basically a platform that uses Gen AI to summarize discovery data for defense attorneys. And you can look, they just launched a product in January and you look at the demand from lawyers, it’s been incredible. Like it’s completely changing an entire industry.

So, you know, I’m excited about that. On the Israeli side, as you can imagine, cyber has been, you know, an amazing industry. There’s a lot of companies building cyber solutions that have been sold to some of the big companies for billions of dollars.

And I think that’s not going to change. I think cyber is going to be big, you know, I’m going to say forever, but it’s going to continue to be big. But you know, I think as a fund, we’re looking at areas in fintech, in healthcare, in legal tech, in logistics, right? Maybe it’s been done through, you know, using a certain way, whether it’s Excel or pen and paper. And now with AI, those industries can be completely, you know, they can be transformed, become much more productive, much more efficient. And, you know, hopefully, you know, move, move, you know, the way we work, move it forward.

Anthony Codispoti : You mentioned a unicorn earlier in the interview from your time with Iconic, something in the employee engagement space. What’s that? Yeah.

Eyal Bino : It’s a company called Connect Team with 1T. It’s an incredible story. It’s a company out of Israel that basically have an app that field employees, whether it’s drivers, salespeople, logistics people, etc., who are in the field most of the day, can use to really feel part of the organization. So when it comes to corporate communication, when it comes to like, you know, little things like punching a card or big things like, you know, birthdays, employee benefits, etc., it’s all being done through one app. And you actually don’t even have to have an email.

You can be just using your phone number. The company raised maybe a million dollars when we came in, you know, really amazing team, amazing CEO. And it kind of took them some time to try to get to like a million dollars in revenue. But then they kind of figured it out and got to like a bunch of organizations who basically said, we really need this because we have no way to track our employees.

We have no way to engage with them, whether it’s trucking companies, cleaning companies, etc., and then COVID hit. And then all companies needed that. So they are now at probably 20,000, 30,000 customers using the app. So I’m talking about organizations.

So that’s hundreds of thousands of employees using it. They already raised about 250 or $300 million in capital. And for me, what’s really, you know, what’s really amazing is to invest in a company that when we invested, it was like maybe four or six people. And now they have 250 employees, offices around the world. They have a big office in Tel Aviv. And, you know, I still have that level of connection with the CEO.

So when I text him and I say, let’s let’s meet for coffee or for a drink, you know, I get an immediate response. Or when I want to actually have a pre-seed or a seed company get an advice, the founder needs to get advice from kind of a more mature CEO. Maybe they need to have a design partnership or maybe become a customer. I actually can tap into the CEO and say, hey, can you please look at that company?

Can you please, you know, work with this founder? And, you know, life moves in circles, right? Like he knows that 10 years ago, it was very hard for him to raise the first million.

And now he’s in a much different position and he wants to kind of give back, right? So it’s beautiful to see it takes a long time, you know, to get there. And you need a little bit of luck, sometimes more than that. But it’s, you know, it’s definitely, it’s definitely incredible to see how transformative, you know, their solution is how big of an impact you make on many, many companies. And obviously to see the success of, you know, the success of the founders.

Anthony Codispoti : I’m kind of curious to get your impressions or your opinion on something here, IA, because you’ve been deeply, deeply ingrained in the tech space for a while. And so you’ve seen trends come and go. You’ve seen hype come and go, right?

You know, dot com days, the 2000 bubble bust, you know, we’ve had the hype of, you know, blockchain and Bitcoin kind of come and go and come again. And, you know, now we’re sort of in a whole new era of AI. And it’s tremendous. What it’s already doing, the future applications of it are mind boggling. And there’s also a ton of hype around it as well. And that just kind of goes with the territory every time you have sort of, you know, giant new advancements in tech like this. How do you think about filtering through and kind of identifying, you know, where the real opportunities are versus where the hype is, it’s going to sort of fade away.

Eyal Bino : Oh, man, this is a loaded question. So there’s kind of two layers to this, right? There’s the foundational AI, those are like the anthropics of the world. Those are big companies that need to raise a ton of money. They want to compete with like the opening eyes of the world. I’m too small of an investor to play in that field, right?

Like this is not my sandbox. And I think those companies are going to be, they’re already transformative, right? You look at perplexity and you look at anthropics and open AI. It’s incredible, right?

I mean, who is not using chat GPT today, right? So it’s, it’s, it’s really amazing. And then there’s the application layer, how AI can go into a specific application and make kind of completely change, you know, an industry, completely change the way people work, the way people, you know, being more productive, etc. So I’m looking at this, you know, in a way, almost like when you look at like the internet in like, you know, the early 2000s, right?

Like there was this big hype and then the kind of the dust settles. And you want to, you want to be very disciplined. I think the way I’m looking at this is, okay, how can I be getting into like the best companies but still be disciplined?

So I think it goes back to kind of the core base, you know, of principles. You look for great teams. You want to be, you don’t want to go into companies because there’s hype and what they call like a party round, right? Like there’s a bunch of VCs trying to kind of build a company and putting some money into it and you’re just going to go into the hype. And I think you kind of look at an industry and say, you know, how many players are doing this? Can this company build something really impactful and they can scale? Quickly enough to be able to be, you know, one of the, you know, kind of early market leaders. So that’s what I’m trying to do.

I think also what helps me is, and we didn’t really talk about this. I’m a solo GP, what they call solo general partner where in essence I raise the capital, I make the decisions, but I do have some great partners with me, some venture partners and also have about 50, 60 LPs. Many of them are other investors who are running their own funds. And many times I’ll consult with them on a specific company based on their expertise, right?

So there’s like this like community of investors who I can tap into if I’m not sure about the specific company, because at the end, you know, you, this is a, this is a profession where you have to be very humble. It doesn’t matter how successful you are. There’s always going to be someone more successful.

There’s always going to be a better company. And I want to really kind of stay true to that because in the end, the only way you can be successful in this business is to produce success stories. And in order to be, you know, produce, to produce success stories, you have to be very disciplined. You have to look at a lot of companies and you have to make bets where you really believe that the founders and the teams can, can build a very successful business.

Anthony Codispoti : What are some of the commonalities that you see in successful businesses, whether it’s at the founder level or the idea or the execution, if you, there’s sort of a, some threads that you’re kind of looking for or would see even in the rear view mirror, what would those look like?

Eyal Bino : Yeah, no, I think that it really starts with the team, right? There’s got to be a very strong base to building a company, right? And it starts with the top, right?

It starts with the CEO. I think the next thing is to build a very differentiated product, right? If there’s, you know, a product that’s really just like, you know, another sales tool or another music app where there’s just been a million of those, it’s going to be very hard to build a scale business. So that’s one thought. I think the other, you know, the other thing that I’ve been looking at and I’ve been doing some reading is the transformation of founders, right? So there’s a company that has certain employees and those employees are really good for like the zero to one. But then to get from one to 10, you pretty much need almost like half of the employees got to be different, right? Like they have to be able to like scale.

They have to kind of be at that early growth stage, right? And then from like 10 to 100, you know, you got to recruit founder. I mean, not founders, but employees who are different and maybe have done this before and can build, you know, original sales and can build, you know, a product at scale, et cetera.

Right. So I think that’s been something that I’ve been spending some time with because I think recruiting, you know, good talent is very hard today because a lot of, you know, the good employees have options, right? So, and I think that’s part of it.

The other part, and I think that goes to like a lot of companies that have offices in different parts of the world, whether it’s or even in the US, right? It’s building a culture. Like employees want to be in a company where they like each other. They like who they work with. They like the CEO, you know, and that everyone feels like they’re on this mission together. So I think that’s something that I’ve seen a lot of commonalities with the successful companies,

Anthony Codispoti : you know, that, you know, that I met with over time. And listen, I think that’s something that not many people talk about, but you just need to get sometimes a little bit lucky, right? And many times those are things that are not in your control, right? Like you just, you’ve been there at the right time in the right place.

Eyal Bino : There’s, you know, COVID helped many companies be super successful and it killed other companies, right? So, you know, it just, it is what it is. And I think the other piece is you want to have a good support system around you, right? You want to have investors who help the company thrive and not holding it back.

You want to have an advisory board who’s really helped, you know, helping the founders, you know, in strategic decisions. So yeah, those are, you know, it’s really, I look at it as a puzzle. So it’s a puzzle where all the pieces got to come together at the right time and then into the right place for the company to be successful. And then at the end, there’s just a timing issue, right? Like many companies think that they can, you know, hold on and get raised more capital and just, you know, they never want to sell or they want to get to that IPO.

And then there’s another company comes in and suddenly it doesn’t look as bright. So I think, you know, there’s probably some, some, some good amount of research on when is the right time to sell a company. And I think those are all things that come with experience.

Anthony Codispoti : I know life’s hard sometimes startups are hard. Obviously you had a lot of success, but there’s been some bumps in the road. I’d be curious to hear about whether it’s personal or professional serious challenge that you’ve overcome, how you got through it and what you learned.

Eyal Bino : So I’ll start with, with work. I grew up in, with a great family, my parents have been great role models for me, especially on, you know, working hard, not getting a free lunch, you know, really making sure that I get the right education and sort of, but they’re blue color people. There was no entrepreneurship involved in it. You know, my mom was a nurse for 40 years. My dad worked for a factory for about 40 years. I was working for an e-learning company and I just felt like after a few years, it was just like not for me anymore. And I kind of felt stuck. I had only a work visa to work for that company. And my direct boss, to put it lightly, didn’t want me to do what I did over there. He felt like I was just not the right person for the job. And he kind of let me know, but the owner of the company wanted me to stay there.

And I kind of didn’t really know what to do. So I left the company. I started doing consulting for startups. And that business has been doing okay. I had a mentor who basically gave me office space. And at some point after like, I don’t know, eight, nine months, he basically said, yeah, listen, I don’t think it’s really going anywhere.

Maybe you should just look for a job. And I really took it hard. I basically said, you know, he’s doubting me. He feels like I’m not good enough, et cetera. And, you know, self doubt is big, right?

Like I had to kind of dig deep and say, okay, so what am I going to do with my life? And I basically did some research and said, hey, there’s no platform here for international startups to expand to New York. How about building a program that sources companies or scratch, brings them to New York? Maybe they pay a little bit of money to get some access. I’m going to bring in, you know, someone to host it.

I’m going to bring in a couple of sponsors to want to want to get access to founders. And I went with it and I asked my wife, what do you think? And she said, listen, I believe in you, just go with it. A couple of months later, I had Dentons, which is one of the largest law firms in the world, basically say, sure, you know, we’re with you. They hosted our events. I brought in an intern, a girl who has been doing an incredible job.

And she’s been with me for four years. We’ve been sourcing companies from all over the world. And within four years, we looked at probably 3000 companies. We had 100 companies go through the platform.

There’s been, you know, probably 10 or 15 exits, one company that’s going for an IPO. So it’s been really, really helpful. But for me, if I didn’t go through that, hey, you know, self doubt, okay, look, you know, maybe you should look for a job. I probably wouldn’t do it because I was comfortable. I needed to get to an uncomfortable place.

Anthony Codispoti : On the personal side, I was an intro for a couple of years. If we could just pause for a second, because I want to pull it a thread there. Because I think you hit on a couple of important things. You know, maybe looking back, you probably have some gratitude to that one guy who said, hey, this isn’t working, right? Maybe you should get a job. Because it sounds like it kind of gave you a very painful kick in the rear to kind of do some soul searching.

Eyal Bino : Totally, totally. And he reached out to me actually a few weeks ago and it’s like, hey, what’s going on with you? I like to be like, because now he looks at me and I’m like, I have, you

Anthony Codispoti : know, I’m very active on LinkedIn and I think he’s, in a way, he’s like proud. But yeah, you kind of need someone to kind of hit you, right? And obviously back then I was very offended. But I cannot thank him enough for what he did for me, because I think this was his way to basically shake me a little bit. And I wouldn’t be where I’m at today if I didn’t go through that, you know, kind of like transformative lesson in soul searching, right? And it kind of started there. And I can tell I was in Grand Central. I was calling my wife and I was like,

Eyal Bino : I was crying, I was so upset. You know, I was like, hey, he’s, you know, he gave me office space. He probably doesn’t want me there anymore. And, and, you know, I think that all of us like to be in the comfort zone level, right? Like, because it’s easier. And I think I’m trying to push my kids not to be in a, in always being, almost, you want to be comfortable, but you don’t want to be always comfortable that you don’t move up, right? Because I think this is the biggest enemy of us fulfilling our full potential.

Anthony Codispoti : I agree. I think growth happened at the uncomfortable edges of life and your story is a great example of that. And you are about to share something there on the personal side as well.

Eyal Bino : Yeah, I mean, I, I was in Israel for a couple of years, kind of in between my second degree. So I finished my, my school, then with you, I was, I was, I was dating a girl who did not want to move to, to New York. And I moved back and, you know, at some point I basically said, okay, I’m, I’m, I’m going to be in Israel and this is where I’m supposed to be. And then the company I work for said, Hey, actually, we need you back in New York. So I was like, okay, well, I thought I was done.

And I need to make a decision. Hey, am I coming back with everything that goes with it with the idea that I’m not sure when I’ll come back to Israel, if, if, if ever, because once I start building a career here, you know, I know how it is. Like someone told me once, listen, if you ever want to move back to Israel, you should do it before you have the house with a pool.

Because once you have the pool, it’s over. And, and then it’s also make a decision personally if I want to, if I see myself with this person for the rest of my life. And back then I did and I, I proposed. And then I realized that kind of a couple of months later, I basically realized like, I don’t think this is going to work.

Like, I don’t think that’s going to work for me and I think it’s going to work for her. And I, you know, I kind of canceled, canceled the wedding and moved to New York. And it was kind of a difficult time because it’s kind of like you start a new chapter in your life and in the meantime, there’s all this like kind of emotional roller coaster of like, okay, I was actually supposed to be married, but I’m coming now to New York as a single guy.

But again, you know, life moves in circles. And about a year later, I made a girl who became my wife and we, you know, we fell in love and within 10 months I proposed and, you know, three months later we had a wedding in Israel and then we had the wedding in New York and now we have three kids and a dog. And, you know, it’s, it’s been, you know, the best thing ever for me, for my family. We’ve gone through, you know, a really beautiful marriage. And, you know, I think that again, I was in this like uncomfortable situation where

Anthony Codispoti : eventually at the time, obviously I didn’t know it, but eventually it led me to where I’m supposed to be. And, you know, I think a lot of us are going through life searching for something, but sometimes it just, you know, life brings it to you without you even knowing about it. On a different timeline than what you want it. Correct.

Right. Now, and, you know, I think we all have the tendency to doubt ourselves, to question ourselves, to question decisions that we’re making. It was probably an element of you that you were going back and forth in that first engagement of, you know, which, which way do I go? And can you think back like, how did you know that this direction was the right direction? Was it a logical thing? Was it like, here’s the pros, here’s the cons, or was it just like a gut feeling?

Eyal Bino : It’s totally a gut feeling. I just, I think that you can, you can analyze everything like a thousand times, right? Like, so I think sometimes, especially in the big decisions, at least for me, I gotta go with my heart, right? Like, I just have a feeling like this is the right thing to do. And it kind of felt right to do this on a business side, right? When I went and I built the global innovative program and then to build iconic, which was an accelerator.

And then at some point, it just felt like I need to move on. I need to build a true VC that is true to myself, that has a lot of what I bring to the table, meaning like a great team and, you know, the Israel New York connection and everything that kind of like portrays me as one of those like friendly guys who was always on the side of the founder is good and like kind of zero to one. And, you know, that self, you know, analysis or I don’t say self, but like, always thinking about kind of growth, like what’s next? Was actually something I’ve been thinking about with this fund, right? So because we’re towards the end of fund one soon, we’ll, you know, we have another four or five investments to go. And I’ve been thinking about fund two and many VCs are starting at, let’s say, 20 and then they want to raise a hundred and then they want to raise 200.

Anthony Codispoti : And they really want to scale this as a business. But I’ve been thinking, I did some soul searching and the basic set to myself. Am I really like, you know, the hundred million dollar VC? Or am I really like the 20 to 30 million dollar VC where I’m just there for the founder? I’m helping them go from Israel to New York from zero to one.

And, you know, can I can I actually sharpen that and be the best at the zero to one Israel to New York piece, right? And I think that’s obviously that’s what I’m going to go for, right? Like I want to build a slightly bigger fund too.

I want to increase the value that our founders are getting. And I want to make sure that I’m the best at what I’m doing, especially now that I’m getting into the age where, you know, it’s not about just exploring. It’s about fine tuning and being as best as you can be because you come with all this experience and now, okay, can I get this experience to a point where this is magical and this is something that everyone sees when they think about me and I don’t have to prove myself time and time again. Obviously, I do need but on the on the basic level, people when they see me and they talk to me, they understand who I am very quickly.

Last two questions for you. First is how do people get in touch with you? Maybe they’re listening and they’re interested from an investing side. Maybe they’re interested in showing you what they’re working on and perhaps being one of your port codes. What’s the best way?

Eyal Bino : Easy as is LinkedIn. I’m Al Bino at LinkedIn. That’s easy. I get a lot of emails on LinkedIn. I try to share as much content as I can. I think it’s a lot of it is about sharing knowledge.

So that’s on that. Another way is email. So I’m at Al, E-Y-A-L at 97212.vc. That’s also easy. So that other two good mediums, you know, founders who obviously get in touch with me, they can also text me or, you know, I get hundreds of text messages on WhatsApp every day. So that’s on that. But I’m very easy to connect with.

Anthony Codispoti : We’ll include links to all those in the show notes. So last question for you, Al, as you look to the next, call it 12 to 18 months, what is it that you’re most excited about, the change that’s coming to the space that you’re in? What gets you really excited?

Eyal Bino : I think, first of all, I think it’s an amazing time to build a company. AI is changing everything. And I think founders now have an amazing opportunity to build great businesses. So it’s one piece. I think I’m excited about just being there and trying to produce more success stories.

And I think that’s really cool. But this time right now, so we had the 21, 2021, 2022 era where everything was hyped, everything was super expensive. Venture firms got bigger.

And then we kind of had this like 23, 24 years, right? Where things were a lot more difficult. There wasn’t like much liquidity in the market.

The market was slower. I think I’m looking at 2025 and beyond as those are the building years. Those are where the most amazing companies for the next 50 years are going to be I’m going to be built and I want to be there when they are built and hopefully investing in a few of those. So I think if you’re a founder, this is an incredible time to build a company, go for it, have the right deck, reach out to me if you want to raise capital. And I think if you’re an investor on the venture side, I think a lot of VCs have basically said, okay, well, what is the right size for our fund? Just like I’ve been asking myself, what is the right value for us when it comes to the founders that we are targeting? And I think now the market is in a state where a lot of those answers have been answered.

A lot of those questions have been answered. And which I think brings clarity to a lot of people. And I think this is overall a good time to be either an investor or founder or generally be part of the tech scene.

Anthony Codispoti : I want to be the first one to thank you for sharing both your time and your story with us today. I really appreciate it.

Eyal Bino : Thank you so much. I enjoyed it and I look forward to talking to you hopefully in a couple of years and see what happened since last time.

Anthony Codispoti : I would love to do that check in. Folks, that’s a wrap on another episode of the Inspired Stories podcast. Thanks for learning with us today.