Israel Dealmakers Summit 2017 Day 2: Disrupt Before You Are Disrupted

This week, the Fung Global Retail & Technology team attended the Israel Dealmakers Summit (IDS) held in Silicon Valley on March 28–30. The Summit is one of the largest Israel-focused business events of the year, featuring more than 1,000 global corporations, investors, dealmakers and entrepreneurs from around the world. The event focuses on key industries including: IoT and connected devices; cyber security, marketing and e-commerce; industrial technology; autonomous vehicles; data science and analytics; artificial intelligence (AI); and virtual and augmented reality (AR/VR).

The conference began on Tuesday with a tour of Google’s Headquarters in Mountain View, followed by official panel sessions,
presentations and one-on-one meetings on Wednesday and Thursday. The event was filled with networking and shared learnings.

The overarching theme of the summit was “future trends.” Presenting partners included Deloitte & Touche LLP, Landmark Ventures and General Electric (GE), as well as a number of featured and supporting partners. Landmark Ventures Managing Director, John Kunschner, kicked off Thursday’s events with a welcome address and highlights from the 2016 event.

Day 2 Highlights

1. Wisdom from Investors and Titans: Disrupt Before You Are Disrupted

Throughout the day, we heard from different company executives who shared their investment insights into the qualities they are looking for in a startup and the new tech they are investing in. Below are some of the highlights:

• Dirk Ahlborn, CEO, Hyperloop Transportation Technologies, Inc.: “Seek out disruption in your organization before you are disrupted.” Ahlborn cited that over 50% of successful companies include outside innovation.
• Jacob Lamm, EVP, Strategy and Corporate Development, CA Technologies: “We are looking for something different. We aren’t looking for you to fit it.” Lamm highlighted that his organization looks for unique teams. They do not want startups to present “how they will fit in.” According to Lamm, the important factor is how the startup will do things differently and help to drive change.
• Laly David, Business Development Partner, OurCrowd: Support from the investor community was emphasized throughout the Summit. David highlighted the power of introducing the right person to the right company through the investor startup community and how it can make all the difference.
• Carla Ghosn, Head of Business Development and Innovation, Visa: Strategic partnerships are very important at Visa. The company is working with Google, Apple, Samsung and digital merchants, and seeks to work on deals that have broad economic impact.
• Brian Modoff, EVP, Strategy, M&A and Investments, Qualcomm: The team is very important at Qualcomm. The company is very interested in emerging markets, and is helping to influence that space, which includes autonomous vehicles and IoT. For example, Qualcomm is investing in experimentation such as robotic arms to wash dishes in restaurants.

2. Health Is Becoming On-Demand, as Technology Drives Medicine into the Hands of the Consumer

The future of medicine is exponential medicine, which is moving to an on-demand model, from the hospital to the home. According to Daniel Kraft, MD Faculty Chair for Medicine & Neuroscience, Singularity University, consumers are the “Chief Operating Officers” of their health. Today they have the ability and the technology to track and measure nearly every aspect of their health. He compared this to a “check engine light” dashboard for health. Dr. Kraft provided numerous examples including contact lenses that measure glucose levels, digital tattoos that measure blood sugar levels, back sensors for posture, ring-ables that track sleep, a Breathometer that can detect disease such as lung cancer and even sensors for diapers.

According to Dr. Kraft, the old business model operated from a position of “sick care” and was reactive, where today’s model is one of prevention. Rapidly developing technologies, including 3D printing, low-cost genomics, machine learning and virtual reality (VR), are enabling new capabilities that can radically improve and disrupt the future of health, prevention and clinical practice, and address many of the grand challenges facing healthcare across the planet.

3. Chatbots Are Personalizing the Consumer Experience

We heard from two Israeli startups—Mmuze and Totango—that are using chatbots to improve the consumer experience: one as an internal tool, the other as an external customer-facing tool.

Mmuze: We met with Co-Founder & CEO, Ran Zfoni, who created an online shopping bot to personalize the online customer shopping experience. Mmuze allows customers to shop online and receive customized help via a conversation box—a chatbot—who walks customers through the shopping process. The online assistant is able to recommend products based on consumer requests, as well as suggest new products. Mmuze has spent three years developing a vertically-based, artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning platform that generates commerce intelligence, turning product catalogs into virtual product assistants. Today, Mmuze is working in the fashion apparel and cosmetics retail space. The company’s goal is to power the next generation of voice and text virtual shopping assistants across different categories.

Totango: Co-Founder & CEO, Guy Nirpaz, created Zoe, a customer-centric chatbot. He described it as democratizing customer data for all employees to see and utilize so that a single team can be responsible for customer success. Zoe allows cross-functional teams to participate with “equal access” to the consumer. The tool provides access on when the consumer was last contacted, what the response was and what the decision was. Everyone at Totango is empowered to make decisions, and to do this, they need current information; Zoe allows for that, providing a seamless consumer experience.

4. Technology Advances in Video Are Allowing for Personalized Video Content and Consumption