UPDATE: Panel video above, photos here.

This Feb 16th two organizations privileged to support founders and their audacity to create the future, are partnering up to talk shop with over 200 Israeli founders and investors. Seedcamp, the popular European startup boot camp, is coming back to Tel Aviv to school and fund our best and brightest. Founders: There’s still time to apply until Feb 3rd. It’s going to be an intense day of mentoring and competition at Afeka College of Engineering with a chance to be seen by some of the world’s top early stage investors.

The IL branch of the TechAviv Founders Club, following up a riveting discussion with our top VCs last month, will convene at 6:30PM in the main auditorium right after Seedcamp’s last session to explore the new generation of seed-stage investment sources available to Israeli Internet and Mobile startups. What better theme to bring us together.

Panelists:
1. Jeremie Berrebi, Kima Ventures. One of the most prolific microfunds, making 2 investments a week!
2. Saul Klein, Seedcamp. Israel’s new $315M man, founder of Seedcamp, the European microfund now focused on Israel.
3. Eden Shochat, Entrepreneur-Angel-VC. Devoting every waking hour to Israeli Internet founders. Spearheads The Junction
4. Yair Goldfinger, Angel. Co-founder of ICQ and Dotomi now funds Israel’s next generation of winners.
5. Yaniv Golan, Angel. Sold Yedda to AOL, now backing young founders with partner Avichay Nissenbaum
6. Guy Gamzu, Angel. Diamond magnet turned Internet angel is backing some of the hottest new Israeli startups.

Many more early-stage investors will participate in the discussion from the audience. This is a closed event and already way over capacity, but every is welcome to watch and chat live Feb 16th @7PM IL time.

Ori Zaltzman has been a TechAviv Founders Club regular since we kicked off the Silicon Valley branch a couple years ago. We knew him as the chief geek behind Yahoo Answers, Yahoo Boss and a mix of upstarts. He’s the kind of rock star hackers admire and execs fight over to hire (yours truly included). Ori’s got a new gig; gogobot. Joining forces with Travis Katz, former head of MySpace International, put them on the map before anyone knew what they were up to. Buzz is one thing, raving early alpha testers and viral growth is another. You’ll notice by the amount of new gogobot follower emails you’ll get once registered that they’re on to something special.

gogobot is one of those “I can’t believe that didn’t exist already” ideas. Simply put, its Social Travel done right. If you like to travel, you’re going to love gogobot. Travis and Ori demo’d their current MVP version and some yet-to-be-released features at this month’s TechAviv Founders Club CA meetup at Stanford Univ. Video above. They won our Peer Award for best demo handily and got some great feedback on their design. Seem’s TechAviv members have a good eye because last week gogobot took home the 2010 Crunchie for Best Design.

This is one to watch folks. Congrats Travis and Ori on the early momentum and to TechAviv sponsor Battery Ventures and TechAviv CA members Dror Berman of Innovation Endeavors and Oren Zeev of Primera Capital for the foresight and fortune to back these guys early.

Continuing our series of thought leader talks, today at Stanford Business School the TechAviv Silicon Valley branch is joined by one of our favorites, Eric Ries. Eric is founder, speaker and author of Startup Lessons Learned and organizer of its highly acclaimed conference. Eric’s experience as an entrepreneur and insight into the process of building “Lean Startups“, a methodogy he created and made popular, has ignited a new startup movement and made terms like “pivot” and “MVP” standard parts of our nomenclature. He’s doing a greater good for founders worldwide by sharing his unique vision of startup agility and metrics and we’re honored to have him. Eric joins us tonight to give a talk and lead an open town-hall style discussion with 100 members.

UPDATE: Event video above (sorry about the audio, headphones are recommended), event details and photos here, presentation deck below:

After three weeks of public and members-only voting, over 100 startups nominated and 6,000 votes cast, we have our Top 5 Finalists of the TechAviv Peer Awards. Face.com, my6sense, 5min, Colnect and 6rounds will compete live on Wednesday, Dec 30th, 7:00pm for the right to claim the crown of Top Israeli Startup of 2009. The event will be broadcast live by TechAviv member LiveU.

UPDATE: 5min Wins!

CLICK HERE FOR LIVE EVENT BROADCAST (Dec 30th, 7:00PM Israel Time)

TechAviv Peer Awards Finalists:

The finals competition is a closed, members-only event of the TechAviv Founders Club in Israel which includes 600 Israeli hi-tech startup founders and investors. In typical TechAviv fashion, we’re crowdsourcing the competition. Rather than have a panel of so-called experts pick the winner, Israel’s founders and investors will select the winner via live SMS vote after the startups get 10 minutes each on stage to impress their peers. See who’s coming here.

Congrats to all of the great startups that were nominated and best of luck to our finalists!

It’s important to note, as many have commented, that many fine Israeli startups outside our mainly Internet, web and mobile software and services membership were not nominated. We may include different category awards next year as a result.

It’s been said Israel is the Start-Up Nation, but who’s the top Israeli startup? Here at TechAviv we’re big fans of crowdsourcing most of our decisions and continuing in that spirit of community we’ve just launched the first annual TechAviv Peer Awards. Starting today we’re inviting all 2,000+ TechAviv Founders Club members worldwide and TechAviv.com readers to vote for their favorite Israeli startup (4 years or younger). Online voting deadline is Dec 21st.

CAST YOUR VOTE FOR TOP ISRAELI STARTUP OF 2009

On Dec 30th at the IDC Herzliya the Top 5 vote-getters will compete live, not in front of a panel of so-called experts, but rather in front of hundreds of fellow founders and investors who will crown this year’s winner via live sms vote. This is going to be good.

I’m excited and proud today to announce the launch of the TechAviv Angels. Born out of the TechAviv spirit of giving back to our community, the TechAviv Angels are a group of Israel’s most successful Internet, Web & Mobile startup founders that have come together to help identify, fund and mentor our next generation of big winners. We’re an informal Angel Club that gathers every two months in Tel Aviv to see pitches by Israel’s most promising Angel-stage startups. Our first “Demo Night” is November 24th. If you’re an Angel-stage Web, Internet or Mobile startup seeking funding apply here. The “Angels” tab will also be a permanent fixture at the top of this site. Applying and presenting is 100% free. Like Jason, we don’t believe startups should pay to pitch, ever.

Over the past two years of running TechAviv Founders Club events worldwide it had become painfully apparent that there are great inefficiencies in the pairing of quality founders with quality Angels in Israel. We hope to establish a platform that streamlines and ignites the funding of more early-stage Internet, Web and Mobile startups by investors that can play a pivotal role in their success. We believe these startups are the future of Israeli hi-tech.

Dream Team

Founding members of the TechAviv Angels include the founders of Israel’s biggest Internet, Web and Mobile exits over the last decade, including Yair Goldfinger (ICQ), Amir Ashkenazi (Shopping.com), Yaron Galai (Quigo), Ofer Adler (Incredimail), Jon Medved (Accent), Oren Dobronsky (Hotbar, SmartShopper), Eilon Tirosh (Exalink, Olista), Eden Shochat (Atternity), Itai Kohavi (Neat Group, Comfy), Ofer Vilensky (Jungo), Nimrod Lev (kSolo) and Avichay Nissenbaum (Yedda). See Full 30 Member List. Combined exits of the founding members exceed $3 Billion USD.

TechAviv Angels will invest individually at first but that may change down the road. Collectively we provide all presenting startups with critical feedback and connections. The platform is designed to facilitate more early investments in quality startups by “Mentor-Angels” that have extensive hands-on experience running similar businesses. We ultimately hope to foster lasting personal relationships that will lead to the building of great Israeli companies. As such, also participating in our Demo Nights are Israel’s top early-stage VCs that have a proven track record of backing successful Internet, Web or Mobile startups. Participating VCs include partners from Sequoia, Benchmark, Bessemer, Gemini, Genesis, Carmel, Canaan, Rhodium, YL Ventures and Kaedan.

VCs in An Angel Club!?

Many have asked why we’re including VCs in TechAviv Angels Demo Nights. The answer is we’re all about helping great founders succeed, period. In some cases an Angel-stage startup’s ideal investment partner may be a forward-thinking VC, Angel or both. Regardless, having a relationship with the leading people in our business is critical to a founder’s success. The TechAviv Angels have been lucky enough to reach a certain level of success building and investing in startups and now want to fuel Israel’s most talented young founders in pursuing their own dreams. When investors compete for your business, everyone wins.

New Economics. New Models.

The cost efficiencies of building Web businesses has rightfully shifted founder’s funding needs and focus from VCs to Angels worldwide. $50K from a strategic advisor is game changing for a Web startup today. Mini-funds like Y-Combinator have proven that.  TechAviv Angels Demo Nights are your chance to get in front of investors who’s guidance and contacts are more valuable than their money. We hope the success of this platform will lead to more Angel investing by successful entrepreneurs and the formation of more Angel Clubs in Israel.

Are you brilliant, grounded and contagiously passionate about your Internet, Web or Mobile business? Let’s get you funded.

UPDATE: Some great initial launch coverage here:

• StartupMania
• VC Cafe
• Ouriel’s Blog
• TheMarker (Hebrew)

It’s standing room only tonight to see demos by this year’s TechCrunch50 Audience Choice winner AnyClip, the visiting Mind360 from Israel and the highly stealth GNMarketLink which will be unveiled for the first time at TechAviv NY. Over 100 of New York’s Israeli hi-tech startup founders, executives and investors will be on hand. Here’s a quick blurb about our presenters:

TechCrunch50 Audience Choice winner AnyClip‘s mission is to let you find and view any moment from any movie, ever. The Company has developed search and metadata extraction technologies which allow consumers and application developers to find the precise moment in time they are looking for or want to use in their applications. AnyClip works in partnership with Hollywood studios to unlock the value and enjoyment in their massive and important libraries of films. Founder & CEO Aaron Cohen (TechAviv Seed Co-Founder) will demo.

Mind360 develops scientific brain training games that improve individuals key cognitive skills through fun and effective techniques. The cognitive abilities trained are: memory, attention, executive functions, thinking and reasoning, and visual perception. Individual users select their own Personal Training Program which comes complete with a personal trainer and constant feedback that ensures a swift and noticeable progress. Founder & CEO Danny Aboody will demo.

Our friends at Google are hosting the TechAviv CA Founders Club meetup tonight. 100 members are coming out to see and discuss demos by TechCrunch50 winner @RedBeacon and the just launched @AppSto_re. Google engineering manager Oren Zamir and Yoah Bar-David will also be presenting the brand new Google Ad Exchange.

TechCrunch50 2009 winner RedBeacon allows consumers who need a service performed to find and interact with local businesses and professionals. Redbeacon goes beyond returning business listings with ratings and reviews by helping consumers determine the right service provider for their specific needs and allowing them to compare price quotes and book appointments online. Co-founder Yaron Binur demos.

AppSto.re is a service that shortens iPhone App iTunes URL’s so consumers can share them across the web, social networks, twitter, etc. This dead simple service comes in handy for the millions of iPhone App enthusiasts out there that want to share the love. You can image how valuable the backend link data becomes over time. Co-founder Ohad Eder-Pressman demos.

Google Ad Exchange is an innovation spearheaded by TechAviv NY member Eyal. This is game-changing stuff, led by one of the sharpest guys around. Here’s a preview video:

UPDATE: Photos from the event.

Columbia Business School hosts us tonight as three of NY’s top Israeli web companies take the stage in front of a standing-room only crowd of TechAviv NY members. Here’s a short blurb about each company:

Eyeblaster has been around the rich media advertising block for more than a decade and despite its multiple rounds of financing and 29 offices around the word, is still innovating like a startup. The company creates tools for online ad campaign deployment and management and provides professional services to ensure you get the job done right. VP Products Ran Cohen will demo their latest toys and discuss the current state of online advertising.

Ronen Mizrachi‘s TVersity is a media server that runs on your PC and lets you stream content to your devices including TV-connected game consoles or set-top boxs, Sony PSP, even to your iPhone, regardless of the codec limitations of the device.  The software pulls it off by transcoding the media on your PC first. 4 million users are digging it. The company has recently launched their Pro version with marguee content from Hulu, CBS, Comedy Central, Amazon VOD, etc. How does it stack up to the likes of Boxee for web-to-TV viewing? We’ll see tonight.

10bis has been feeding tens of thousands of card-carrying Israeli hi-tech’ers, and normal people too, via their best-of-breed online food ordering and delivery service in Israel. Many hi-tech companies (mine included) use their cards to enable employees to eat out at participating restaurants on the company’s dime.  Very convenient service and well oiled site. The service however is Israel-based so what is founder and CEO Tamir Carmel doing in NYC? We’ll find out.

I love MIT. The place oozes smart, serious innovation. Tonight 60 local Israeli hi-tech founders and execs come together to soak it in and discuss three very promising local Israeli startups. Zixi, Aternity and Nexperience demo their goods. Here’s a blurb about each.

Zixi turns high-speed Internet and Intranet connections into Instant Video Delivery Networks (IVDN’s) for a fraction of the cost your CDN would charge you thanks to its Zync™ platform. In effect it turns any website or corporate network into a broadcasting hub with standard to HD capabilities. Founder & CEO Israel Drori will demo while his team broadcasts tonight’s event live. Click here for LIVE BROADCAST. (Requires plug-in install)

Aternity, a recent InfoWeek Top50 Startup,  redefines end user experience management by providing the industry’s first Frontline Performance Intelligence platform designed to dramatically reduce business disruptions (think, email goes down) and significantly increase end user productivity. The service enables proactive IT management through self-learning, preemptive problem detection, and right-time decision support.  Every desktop becomes a self-monitoring platform that is user-experience aware. Raviv Chalamish, VP Tech Services gives us a demo.

Nexperience reduces the complexity involved in launching and sustaining mobile services. The service streamlines the development, testing, monitoring processes of mobile applications and content across devices, networks and geographies. The service enables the user to control remote handsets and use automated procedures to perform testing and monitoring tasks more efficiently and effectively. Alon Geva, VP, Sales will demo.