Guests & Investors

Zvi Shechter

General Partner,

Over 30 years of experience in technology investments, research, valuations and due diligence.

Partner, Swanlaab Venture Factory (Spain), a €40MM Venture Capital Fund investing in innovative Spanish companies.

Previously held positions

• Co-founder and Managing Director, Giza Venture Capital with over $600MM under management, Israel
• Investment Manager, Leumi and co., Israel.

Zvi holds a BSc in Economics and Management (cum laude), from Technion, Haifa and an MBA in Finance (cum laude), from Tel-Aviv University.

Natalie Refua

Partner,

Natalie is a partner at Viola Growth. She joined Viola Growth as an associate when it was first founded in 2008, eventually becoming a Principal, and was promoted to Partner in 2016 . Natalie is an experienced investment professional with a vast network of connections in Israeli hi-tech and VC industries.

Eyal Bino

Co-founder,

Based in NYC, Eyal Bino is an entrepreneur and investor who focuses on Israeli tech. He is co-founder of ICONYC labs, a value-add investor and accelerator for early stage Israeli startups expanding to the US market via NYC. To date, forty-five Israeli startups have graduated ICONYC, raising over $150MM in venture funding and accelerating growth. 

Previously, Eyal was venture partner at B Capital, an $820MM global fund launched by Eduardo Saverin (c0-founder, Facebook), focused on leading growth rounds in disruptive startups. Eyal is a regular contributor for Forbes with pieces focusing on Startup Nation and is one of the top thought leaders on TLV-NYC tech.

Mitchell Kleinhandler

Managing Partner,

Mitchell Kleinhandler is managing partner at Differential Ventures and board partner at Scout Ventures. Both are early-stage technology venture capital funds located in New York City. He is also an investor, advisor, and consultant to startups and has extensive expertise in the financing, development, and management of early-stage and growth companies across diverse industry verticals.

Ashley Ramirez

Chief of Staff,

Ashley Ramirez is chief of staff and an investor at Halogen Ventures. She has been with Halogen since 2016 and looks for companies that focus on building better futures for the next generations. Ramirez works on both the investment side and operational side. She helps source and identify the best companies to invest in, works hands-on with Halogen’s portfolio, manages relationships with Limited Partners, and leads the fund’s platform. Additionally, she sits on the board of one of Halogen’s portfolio companies, Blue Fever. She is also a member of Halogen’s Investment Advisory Committee.

Ramirez developed a passion for Venture Capital while working with Jesse Draper at the Valley Girl Show. Through this experience, Ramirez gained first-hand experience learning how entrepreneurs built their companies from the ground up. Her interest expanded to the consumer side which led her to venture capital. She joined Halogen in 2016 and was with the fund through the first close with 62 female-founded consumer technology investments to date. Using her experience and knowledge from the entertainment industry and expertise in the digital media space, she organizes frequent pitch days, heads the influencer initiative for Halogen, and helps scale Halogen’s venture development. She is on the steering committee of AllRaise and is dedicated to supporting and growing young entrepreneurs, women in finance and creating a more diverse pipeline of investors in venture capital.

Prior to joining Halogen, Ramirez worked in PR, Marketing, Talent Relations and Entertainment with iHeartMedia, a boutique PR firm, and The Valley Girl Show. Ramirez is a graduate of UCLA and an alumni of Kappa Kappa Gamma.

Ryan Hemingway

Managing Director,

Ryan is an operator and strategist.  Throughout his undergrad he was a flight instructor set on becoming a commercial airline pilot.  After a number of entrepreneurial experiences, he realized he was happier solving unique and challenging problems and switched focus.  As a corporate bond trader, he increased his trading performance through data analysis and backtesting of historic data.  He also redesigned the risk management and hedging strategy resulting in a large reduction in borrowing costs.  While building the Private Bank in Nevada, he did a little of everything, launching new products and partnerships, optimizing sales strategy, marketing and branding.

Ryan has been investing with EPIC Ventures for 10 years. His investments include Cloud Lending (acquired by Q2 Holdings NYSE: QTWO), Mirador (acquired by Cuna Mutual), Lytics, RecVue, Numetric, Homie, Western Peaks Logistics, MagicCube, Paystand and Datazoom.  He co-leads the investment team which oversees deal sourcing, analysis, network development and training future investors.     

Ryan enjoys working with students. He taught Entrepreneurial Management as an adjunct professor, and is currently a board member of the Utah State Entrepreneurial Founds Board where he mentors young entrepreneurs.

Ryan has a BS in Psychology, and a MSS in Economics from Utah State University and an MBA from the University of Oxford.

Farley Weiss

President,

Farley Weiss has practiced intellectual property law since 1990. Mr. Weiss has significant experience handling trademark, service mark and copyright applications, license agreements, renewals, statements of usage, amendments and infringement matters. Mr. Weiss has filed more than 1,000 trademark, service mark and copyright applications. In 1988, Mr. Weiss served as a law clerk for Justice Menachem Elon, who at the time was the Vice President of the Supreme Court of Israel.

​Prior to his career in law, Mr. Weiss played professional tennis and achieved a world ranking of 713 in singles and 736 in doubles through tournaments played in the U.S., Finland and Spain. As a nationally ranked junior tennis player, Mr. Weiss was a member of the winning Phoenix Junior Davis Cup team for three consecutive years. Mr. Weiss was inducted into the Phoenix Country Day Schools sports hall of fame for winning five individual state high school tennis titles from 1976 to 1981; including his first in 7th grade before a new ruling stipulating players must be in high school to compete.

Mr. Weiss is currently President of the National Council of Young Israel. NCYI is one of the 51 major Jewish organizations and it represents about 130 Synagogues nationally, comprising of around 25,000 families. The organization is 100 years old and Mr. Weiss is the first President outside of the New York New Jersey area.

Mr. Weiss is married to Jessica Weiss, who practices immigration law with Weiss & Moy. They have six children.

Yehuda Barbasch

Financial Strategist,

Yehuda Barbasch is a financial operations expert with a keen interest in and following of the Israeli start-up scene for more than a decade. Following International Business studies in England and France, Yehuda’s first role after making Aliya 14 years ago was building the back office operations of a real estate investment firm.

The subsequent six years at Citibank Tel Aviv included learning, adapting and rebuilding Treasury processes. Yehuda also brought his combined skills in business and technology to projects with Citibank’s Global Markets Innovation Centre based in Israel. He then spent three years helping to grow the young Tel Aviv branch of Pictet Wealth Management. He was responsible for Compliance, Logistics and Technology.

Yehuda currently works with early-stage start-ups on financial strategy and business development.

Antony Gordon

Managing Director,

Antony Gordon, a Fulbright Scholar and Sir Abe Baily Fellow graduated from Harvard Law School and completed The Business of Sports, Entertainment and Media Executive Program at Harvard Business School. Mr. Gordon is managing director of MGO, one of the fastest-growing professional services firms in the USA.  Mr. Gordon’s 20+ years of experience on Wall Street include having spearheaded Investor Relations for two hedge funds as well as leading a team at Morgan Stanley covering Silicon Valley.

Mr. Gordon is a sought-after speaker and prolific writer on current affairs for a number of publications, including the likes of the Times of Israel and The Jerusalem Post. Mr. Gordon is the host of the critically acclaimed podcast “The Antony Gordon Show” on iTunes and Spotify and is the Chairman of the Board of Advisors of America’s Voices in Israel.