ABOUT
The digital partnership of Cologne and SOSA/Tel Aviv will connect leading startups, investors and innovators with strong business and industries. The partnering will support innovation through exchange of best practices, professionals, industry introductions and scouting of relevant startups for partnerships and investments.
The digital international partnership between Cologne and Tel Aviv will serve as a platform of founder spirit and digital entrepreneurship. Both cities will contribute to this unique ecosystem of communication, collaboration in order to enable Cologne based startups to connect to potential investors from Israel. Startups from Tel Aviv will benefit from gaining access to leading industries based in Cologne.
Since the end of the 70s, Cologne and Tel Aviv are collaborating as international twin towns. Over the past years, Tel Aviv strengthened its position as the worldwide leading and highly active startup-scene in Europe and the Middle East. This vibrant international hub for technology and innovation attracts international investors, entrepreneurs and high-tech professionals from around the world. Cologne offers one of the most diverse economies including leading retail, insurance and media companies. Furthermore, the entire region benefits from the aeronautics, astronautics and automotive sector, several chemical and pharma enterprises as well as newly rising biotech and life-science companies.
The digital international partnership will create innovation and enable new business opportunities. Therefore SOSA and the City of Cologne will conduct an intense exchange of best practices, knowledge transfer and professionals. Participating start-ups will benefit from exclusive industry introductions in order to scout for investment partners.
SOSA proposes a strategic collaboration wherein the City of Cologne and Cologne based companies will benefit from the guidance and support of the growing local innovation ecosystem, deal flow access, exclusive introductions to investors and branding. SOSA will improve connections between Cologne based companies and startups from Tel Aviv. Further SOSA will facilitate the knowledge transfer and focus on an intense level of cooperation through delegations, networking events featuring Cologne based business, tours and visits.
Henriette Reker, Lord Mayor of the City of Cologne
„ The cities of Tel Aviv and Cologne have been linked through a city twinning since 1979 with the intention of getting to know each other better and of achieving a deepening of human relations between its citizens. The existing exchange is now to be intensified with the cross-sectoral topic “Digitalisation” and to be developed further by mutually promoting business development in the fields of technology, start-up and founder funding and connecting innovators to business and industry.The aims of the digital international partnership and www.dip.cologne are to intensify the cross-cluster exchange about digital developments, a close cooperation in the field of technology and the start-up community as well as the joint development and extension of an international InnovationHub. “
The Media- and Internetbusiness Unit of the City of Cologne and SOSA Tel Aviv offer founders, start-ups and investors different things to benefit from the networks of both ecosystems. If you are interested of getting part of the network, get in touch with dip.cologne.
Yours sincerely
Henriette Reker
Jörg is Managing Partner of Capnamic Ventures and one of the most active VC´s in Germany for the last 12 years. The multi-corporate fund was founded in January 2013 and holds offices in Cologne and Berlin. The investment focus concentrates on fast growing business models along the digital value chain and scalable areas such as mobile, e-commerce, gaming, payment, advertising and software as a service.
Thomas “Tom” Bachem is a passionate entrepreneur and founder of several startups. Starting his entrepreneurial career in his very youth, the list of companies he founded includes sevenload (sold to Hubert Burda Media in 2010), Fliplife (sold to KaiserGames in 2012), Lebenslauf.com (sold to XING in 2014), Scaling Technologies and United Prototype. Though he studied International Business at Cologne Business School, his true passion lies in tech, and he spends a lot of his time designing, coding and building products himself. He currently spends most of the remaining time as Member of the Board at Bundesverband Deutsche Startups, the startups association he co-founded in 2012 to strengthen Germany's startup ecosystem and is an active business angel and frequent speaker.
Roy Oron is the Global CEO of SOSA, the Town Square of the Israeli innovation ecosystem. Until recently Roy was the head of Investments and Business Development at Plus Ventures, one of the leading early stage investors in Israel, and was the first investor in promising startups such as Meerkat, YOTPO, CallVU and WSC Sports.
Prof. Dr. Tobias Kollmann is a chaired professor of E-Business and E-Entrepreneurship at the University of Duisburg-Essen and North Rhine-Westphalia appointed him its representative on issues of the Digital Economy.
Yonit Golub Serkin is the Global Head of Business Development for SOSA where she leads the scouting, strategic partnerships and business development efforts. Prior to joining SOSA, Serkin was the founding Principal of Moonscape Ventures, a Corporate Development Group investing in IoT, Media, Smart City and Big Data early stage technologies. She served as the Director of Operations and Business Development for Amelia Investments, a boutique investment fund focused on launching companies throughout the broad Middle East. Before immigrating to Israel, Serkin served as Deputy Chief of Staff for Economic Development in the Office of Mayor Michael Bloomberg in New York City where she worked with over a dozen city agencies to develop programs to encourage entrepreneurship, attract talent and grow businesses. In 2014, Serkin was named one of the 40 under 40 in HiTech in Israel, by The Marker magazine. Yonit received Masters of Arts and Bachelors of Arts in International Studies & Economics from the Johns Hopkins University.
Alexander Hoeckle, Director of the international and business support section of the Cologne Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Founded in 1797, the Cologne Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCI) is one of the oldest chambers in Germany. The CCI provides advice in all fields of business activities and plays with its Start Up Unit a crucial role in the Start Up scene of the region.
As the founder and chief executive of business-on.de, one of Germany’s most successful online b2b magazines, Christian Weis has fifteen years of entrepreneurship to show. On top of that he established a popular franchise company out of the primal webzine. Three years ago, Christian turned his self made experiences as an – admittedly - anciently Startup himself and his concentrated top connections made out of launched with StartupCon.de.
Tomer is one of Yotpo's founders. He focuses on making Yotpo the User reviews distributor out there. He is a highly motivated, young, internet junkie entrepreneur. Most of his time he puts into the sales and marketing of the company a long with customer support and production.
Martina Richter is owner of the Cologne based media consulting company HMR International, where she develops and implements integrated communication strategies and consults broadcasters, production-companies, publishers and media-political institutions on an international level. She provides advice to traditional media companies concerning their online- and games-strategies. Moreover, she is the director of the Cologne Conference – International Film- and Television Festival Köln. Talk to Martina if: you want to meet an experienced adviser that has been consulting the traditional media as well as online platforms, games developers and startups for more than 20 years.
Prof. Dr. Klemens Skibicki started out in his field of „digital transformation of the industrial economy“ as a professor for Marketing and Marketing Research at the Cologne Business School. Benefitting from his background of an economic historian he first became a speaker, author and consultant for decision makers in enterprises and politics. After several small scale digital projects he co-founded Convidera in 2012 – nowadays a companion for holistic digital transfomation. Convidera supports worldwide operation clients with 3 Businessunits of consulting, software and operational teams.
Fabian Jager is a passionate entrepreneur with tech background. He co-founded the German social network wer-kennt-wen.de in 2006, having 9 million users and 5 billion page impressions per month in its peak time. In 2009 he successfully sold it to the German television broadcaster RTL.
Self-made entrepreneur and online pioneer Dr. Lorenz Gräf successfully founded two times himself before he brought to life the startup incubator STARTPLATZ in 2012, now with branches in Cologne and Düsseldorf. Ever since then, he serves as an expert and mentor, especially in the thriving Rhineland startup scene. His goal is to build a strong, functioning startup ecosystem in the Rhineland, in which STARTPLATZ represents the starting point and centre for ambitious startups.
Rami Beracha is a Managing General Partner at Pitango. His investment focus is primarily in Internet & Mobile Play. He previously practiced law in New York at the corporate financing department of Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver and Jacobson.
Fabian Rossbacher is CEO of SEO Day UG and responsible for the strategic development of the company. SEO Day hosts one of the largest search engine optimization and online marketing conferences in Germany.
Peter Richarz is Managing Partner of Dieter von Holtzbrinck Ventures GmbH, the independent venture capital company of the publishing house with access to the readers of the DvH media group including Verlagsgruppe Handelsblatt, Tagesspiegel and Die ZEIT.
Since 1999, Yahal served as co-Managing Partner of Magma, and positioned Magma as a major player in the New Media space. As chairman and acting CEO of Phonetic Systems, a portfolio company of the Fund, Yahal repositioned the company as a market leader, and led Magma’s first exit as it was acquired by Nuance (NASDAQ: NUAN). In addition to his knowledge of the communications and technology sectors, Yahal has worked closely with both the investment banking and venture capital communities. Yahal currently serves as Director on the boards of SightEra-Magisto, Valens Semiconductor and Indegy. Previously, Yahal was on the boards of Waze (acquired by Google, NASDAQ: GOOG), Onavo (acquired by Facebook, NASDAQ:FB), DesignArt Networks (acquired by Qualcomm, NASDAQ: QCOM) and Phonetic Systems (acquired by Nuance, NASDAQ: NUAN).
Tim Schumacher is Managing Director of TS Ventures and Chairman of Eyeo, which develops and distributes the Adblock Plus browser plugin to give users more control of their online privacy. The browser plugin has been downloaded over 400 million times world-wide.
Stefan Vosskoetter is a Serial Entrepreneur and expert for the German startup industry. As General Manager of DS Media GmbH, he founded the German magazine “deutschestartups. de” which reports daily and up-to-date on new German startups, funding rounds and trends and developments in the German startup scene.
Stefanie Weidner is Managing Director of Solution Space Innovation GmbH, which provides young entrepreneurs and founders with a co-working area and individual offices in the center of Cologne.
Tamer Kulmac is CEO of K2 Interactive GmbH and CEO of Elit Internet. As Serial Entrepreneur, he focuses on international projects to connect the Turkish and German markets.
Kai Thierhoff is the founder and owner of Thierhoff Consulting and a multiple entrepreneur. Domestic and foreign clients from both, Startup and Investors side, benefit from his more than 25 years of experience in the fields of Tech, IT and Tourism. He consults in the field of Capital Acquisition for Startups and SME, including Angel Investors, Venture Capital Acquisition and EU/State Subsidies. In addition to his involvement as a consultant and lecturer, Kai founded and participated in several Startups as founder, co-founder, Coach, and Investor. He is Professor for Entrepreneurship at RFH University where he focuses on digital media business models and capital acquisition from venture capital and other growth financing opportunities. As an active member of the German Startup Scene, he was juror in many startup competitions and also a juror in the German Startup talent show "Mit Liebe gemacht" (“Made with Love”) (WDR & einsfestival, 2013/2014 ). Since 2008 he organizes startup conferences like Freigeist Conference, co-founded INTERACTIVE COLOGNE and the series of events and conferences for ADVANCE. He is also on the board of the university founder network Cologne (HGNC). He graduated from Cologne University in management and got a Ph.D. in Entrepreneurship from ebs University at Oestrich-Winkel.
Jonny Saacks is Managing Partner at Genesis Partners. Jonny Saacks is passionate about partnering with entrepreneurs from seed stage who aim to change the world. Genesis Partner is an early stage venture capital firm that partners with exceptional entrepreneurs and founders who inspire us with their passion and vision. We like to invest early and support companies that are changing the world through technology.
Frank is one of the advisors in the mayor’s office of the city of cologne. He is one of the authors of the concept „Internetcity Cologne – Targets - Structures – Cooperation - Support to develop the profile of cologne as an national and international location for internettechnology and internetinfrastructure.
Joachim Vranken is entrepeneur and spokesperson of Web de Cologne, the network of more than 80 digital companies in the Cologne Area.
Carmit heads SOSA’s Value Creation efforts. Carmit brings to SOSA over 15 years of experience in marketing, account management and brand management across the insurance and financial services industry.
Roland is the head of the media- and internetbusiness unit of the department of economic development and real property of the city of cologne. The media- and internetbusiness unit is the contact within the city administration regarding to all issues around starting a digital business or running a business referring to digital applications, radio, television, webbroadcasting, e.g.
René Kaute is a Serial Entrepreneur and expert of building startups and of the media and venture business.
Tal Barnoach is General Partner of Disrupt-ive and an very successful entrepreneur since 1993. Over the past 20 years he has acted as founder and executive of companies such as S.E.A which went public in 1996, and others which have been acquired; Orca Interactive (acquired by France Telecom in 2008), Beinsync (acquired Phoenix Technologies in 2008) and Dotomi (acquired by Valueclick in 2011. He is a seed investor in companies such as Quomranet (acquired by Red Hat), Crossrider (acquired by The Markets), Fixya, Qwilt, Fusic, Beamr and Askem. Tal recently founded a seed+ fund which focuses on Israeli related companies and technologies He served in the Israeli Special Intelligence Unit of the IDF and is a Tel-Aviv University graduate.
Kevin Baxpehler, Director, Head of Israel Office at ProSiebenSat.1 Media AG. Kevin has over 10 years experience as an entrepreneur and results driven executive with knowledge in operations, sales, finance and strategy. He leads ProSiebenSat.1 Media's investment office in Israel, mentors & advises startups and makes the occasional angel investment.
Michael Buck is the CEO and Co- founder of Convidera GmbH a globally active consultancy firm. He co-founded Convidera in 2012, an up and coming consulting company specialized in Digital Change along the corporate value chain. Michael is equally involved as investor for several Web 2.0 Businesses and Technology companies. Until 2012, Michael served as Senior Executive for Dell`s Global Online Marketing Business and was responsible for the overall eBusiness Marketing and Strategy for Dell`s Consumer and SMB Organization worldwide. He also served as the exclusive keynote speaker for Dell, covering Digital Transformation topics and promoting Dell’s success story around their global Social Media Marketing Strategy. Before Dell, Michael has held several European Executive level positions at Hewlett-Packard for over a decade, leading the upgrade and the growth of HP’s European Laser and Inkjet Printing organization. He holds a degree in International Business Studies and Business Administration and was an associate MBA professor for Supply Chain Management at the University of Applied Sciences (FH) in Furtwangen, Germany. He is a renowned Keynote Speaker at international conferences focusing on Digital Transformation, Social Media, and Web 2.0 Customer Service topics for B2C and B2B.
Harald A. Summa, founder and CEO of eco – the Association of the Internet Industry, has managed and developed both the eco Association and the Internet Exchange DE-CIX since 1995, and has been CEO of DE-CIX GmbH since 2003, when it became an independent company. A vocal representative of the Internet industry in Germany and internationally, Summa has written many specialists articles and has also lectured on the topics Communication, Marketing and Sales. From 1981 until 1992, he was a Lecturer at the University of Cologne in Applied Informatics, and he is currently undertaking a Ph.D. at the University of Cologne in the Department of Business, Media and Technology Management. Through his work for eco and DE-CIX, Harald A. Summa has helped to shape the legal and political framework for the liberalization of the telecommunications market in Germany, and has supported the development of Internet infrastructure from its very beginnings in Europe, and increasingly, throughout the world. He is a member of the German Federal Advisory Board “Young Digital Economy” as well as the Digital Economy Advisory Board for the state of North-Rhine Westphalia. He is the co-initiator of the European associations EURO-ISPA and Euro-IX and is active in consultative functions and as a member in a range of advisory committees in Germany, at both state and federal levels.
Daniel has more than 20 years experience in building successful e-commerce businesses. He founded and still serves as CEO @ Pixum – a leading Online Photo Service in Europe. He is the head of a team that grew the business from 3 founders to more than 300 people and from zero to more than €55 million revenue today. He built the online marketing team, led mergers and acquisitions and led the roll out to 8 different countries throughout Europe. Daniel also holds the position as Trend & Innovation Scout @ CEWE where he leads all corporate VC activities. He serves as a Investors Committee Member @ Germany's leading Seed-Investor High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF) and is board member @ WebdeCologne. Prior roles includes Senior Management and Sales Positions in international High-Tech Companies like Nortel Networks, Computacenter & CompuNet. Daniel studied Computer Science but abandoned his studies to found his first Company.
Jan Webering is the founder and CEO of Sevenval Technologies GmbH, one of the leading enterprises for mobile, frontend and web-technologies. He has built the company into a one-stop shop for international corporations and their challenging web projects in just 12 years.
Dr. Mathias Reif, partner of the international law firm DWF, is a deal maker, bringing cross-border M&A transactions, corporate projects and international distribution systems to a successful closing. Mathias has extensive experience in handling corporate transactions for Israeli clients. He is seen by many Israel-based technology companies as their trusted advisor in all of their business dealings in Europe.
Klaus Brisch, Certified Attorney in Information Technology and , partner of the international law firm DWF, advises on complex, national and international IT projects, including those focused on outsourcing and migration, technology-based transactions, compliance, IT and cyber security, data protection and privacy. His expertise lies in identifying and advising on legal issues for new technologies, such as 3D printing, connected devices, intelligent internet, industry 4.0, and wearables.
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