Top 15 Venture Capital Angel Investors in Middle East

Atakan Atalar is the Founder of Atanova Ventures. He previously worked at RemoteTeam.com (acquired by Gusto) as an Investor. Atakan Atalar attended Istanbul Kultur University.

Ilana Golan is the founder of Golan Ventures and Leap, the exclusive program that has been transforming thousands of lives and careers. Tech executive, turned entrepreneur, board director and investor (in over 100 companies). Selected top 40 women to watch in 2016, Business Insider Silicon Valley Women of influence in 2017 and the prestigious CEOWorld award for 2019. Forbes Contributor & award-winning international keynote speaker. Featured on Yahoo Finance, Market Watch, Fox, NBC, CBS, ABC, and more. Started her career as an F-16 flight instructor and the first woman to become a commander in her squad.

Marc Lasry is Chairman, CEO and Co-Founder of Avenue Capital Group. In addition to Avenue Capital Group, Mr. Lasry also Co-Founded Amroc Investments, LLC. Prior to that, Mr. Lasry was Co–Director of the Bankruptcy and Corporate Reorganization Department at Cowen & Company. Before Amroc, Mr. Lasry served as Director of the Private DebtDepartment at Smith Vasiliou Management Company. Mr. Lasry also clerked for the Honorable Edward Ryan, former Chief Bankruptcy Judge of the Southern District of New York. In 2004 Mr. Lasry co-chaired the Penn Parent Leadership Committee, together with his wife Cathy Cohen. The following year the couple donated $5 million to Clark University, which put the donation toward building the Lasry Center for Bioscience.Lasry serves on the board of the 92nd Street Y. He is also on the board of Trustees for the Mount Sinai Hospital, and is a Trustee of Beth Israel Medical Center and Continuum Health Partners Inc. He sits on the Board of Directors of The Clinton Global Initiative and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.Lasry is married to Cathy Cohen and has five children. His son, Alexander, worked for White House Senior Adviser Valerie Jarrett. Lasry's daughter, Samantha, was a staffer for congressman Rahm Emanuel. Lasry's hobbies include basketball, tennis and comics.

Gigi Levy Weiss is the General Partner at NFX. He attended Tel Aviv University and the Finance Department - Kellogg School of Management.

David Assia is a Chairman at iAngels. David Assia, a member of their Board of Directors since October 2006, is a co-founder of Magic Software Enterprises Ltd., and served there in various positions, including as Chairman of the Board of Directors and Chief Executive Officer, from 1983 until 2007. Mr. Assia is currently the CEO of Nadyr Investments,a privately held investment company. Mr. Assia was managing director of Mashov Computers Ltd. between 1980 and 1986 and has served as the Chairman of its Board of Directors since 1989. Mr. Assia also serves as a director of the First International Bank, eToro Group Ltd., Biocatch Ltd., MobeeArt, The Weizmann Institute of Science, Yeda Research & Development Company and The Israel Association of Electronics and Software. Mr. Assia holds a B.A. degree in economics and statistics and an M.B.A. degree, both from Tel Aviv University.

Robbie Citron brings to OurCrowd over 25 years of experience in financial management, including over a decade of working with start-ups through his role as Partner and CFO of Jerusalem Global Ventures, a leading Israeli venture capital fund. He also serves as consulting CFO for several independent Israeli biotech and medical start-ups, mostrecently with Izun Pharmaceuticals and Molecular Detection, Inc. Earlier in his career, Robbie was Financial Controller and Company Secretary of the Israeli branch of Hanson PLC and worked as a public accountant with PricewaterhouseCoopers in Israel and BDO Stoy Hayward in London. He is a Certified Public Accountant in Israel and a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accounts in England & Wales. Robbie received an honors degree in accounting and finance from the London School of Economics and Political Science and sets aside part of his spare time to work with several Jerusalem-based charitable institutions.

Eilon Tirosh is a Startup Helper at SpearHealth. He attended Tel Aviv University.

Alex Waislitz was appointed Chairman of the Company on 21 November 2013. Alex Waislitz is the founder and Chairman of the private Thorney Investment Group, one of Australia’s most successful private investment groups. He has extensive business and capital markets experience and has been a member of several public company boards.Alex Waislitzis the current Vice President of the Collingwood Football Club Limited where he has been a director since 1998.He served on the boards of Zoos Victoria Foundation Board and the Victorian State Government Zoological Parks and Gardens between 2010 and 2012. He joined the International Advisory Board of Maccabi World Union in 2012 and is a former member of the International Advisory Board for the MBA program at Ben Gurion University School of Management.Alex Waislitz has established registered charities; the Waislitz Foundation (2013) and more recently the Waislitz Family Foundation (2015). These charities focus on community projects, education, health, indigenous programs and the arts.Alex Waislitz is a graduate of Monash University in Law and Commerce and a Graduate of the Harvard Business School OPM Program.

Fahad Hafiz is a prominent serial entrepreneur. Hafiz has a wealth of expertise in a wide range of industries, including finance, oil and gas, travel, automotive, cryptocurrencies, and fintech

Kenes (Kenges) Rakishev - a prominent entrepreneur and investor, and one of the most influential businessmen in Kazakhstan, according to Forbes magazine, Kenes has served in several top positions in both the private and public sector throughout his career and worked as an advisor for the Kazakhstan Interior Ministry and Department of Education.Kenes is a co-founder of the global venture fund Singulariteam. It was his vision to make advancing mobile technology more widely available after he noted a very real desire for currently unobtainable functionality.

Daniel Recanati is the Founder & CEO of Rhodium. a private investment firm whose mission is to identify the most promising entrepreneurs and help them build thriving companies. focusing on Impact, digital, climate tech and space via Earth & beyond ventures. .

Yuval Tal has made quite a difference in the world of business online thanks to the creation of various e-commerce companies, many of which have successfully developed through his co-creation or his additional expertise. He has over 20 years of experience in technological startups, prepaid card applications, and security technology. CurrentWork Experience: Yuval Tal is the president of the NYC-based Payoneer, the private company he founded in 2005 an served as CEO during 2005-2010. Payoneer establishes viable solutions for payments in prepaid MasterCard® credit cards through the Internet via their prepaid Payoneer credit card. Instead of using typical banking services, Payoneer allows its members (including many online businesses) to sell products, but pay for their own supplies through an online service. Their technology system is secure, but assures privacy for its customers. The company is composed of over100 technology and finance expert employees. While based in NY, it also has research and development locations in Israel.Tal also provides consultation to Payments-r-us, a company started by four e-commerce experts who provide payment processing, merchandising and assorted payment solutions to their customers. The company helps their members find appropriate and free payments solutions.Past Work Experience: Before the creation of Payoneer, Tal was a co-founder for E4X Inc., technology and e-commerce payments provider worldwide. The company was established in 1999 but later changed its name to FiftyOne as it became a global market and e-commerce leader. The company allows its businesses to develop their online sales, marketing, delivery, stock, and transaction capabilities. Its current value is upwards of $500 million. Tal was the acting vice president as part of the business and development sector. FiftyOne is an innovative e-commerce solution because it's one of the pioneers of the e-commerce movement, allowing online retailers from the US to promote, market, and sell their merchandise using the monetary means of their native country. This is still significant today in terms of global money orders, payment processes and the international flow of goods from one point to the other. It's no wonder that market retailers like the Anthropologie clothing store, luxury and electronic gift store Brookstone, and Overstock.com have worked with the company. The company is based in New York, with its research and development operations unit in Israel.Tal also shined in leadership positions for companies such as R-U-Sure, where he was the chief executive officer, and vice president of business development at Radware, a publically traded company on NASDAQ.Summits and Conferences:Yuval Tal has participated in a plethora of affiliate, marketing, and digital-related conferences connected to his kind of work. At many of the conferences, he was featured as a speaker. The most recent conference was the impressive "Apps World," which was held in London in October 2012. The conference is noted to be the leading venue for those involved in the apps industry where they network and collaborate on international projects. He was a guest speaker at the conference and he explained the concept of Payoneer to the participants detailing how it fits into the newest e-wallet technologies. Through Payoneer, companies distribute branded cards that enable them to send direct payments into the recipient's account. He also shared his thoughts on the shape of the future mobile industry and responded to a series of general questions regarding the e-commerce industry.When he was invited to participate in a panel discussion at Israel's Afeka College, he had the opportunity to address many issues that were unclear to the attendees. Among others, the subjects ranged from discussions on the topic of Israel as a “hotbed” in the area of financial innovation, how web based financial start-ups differs from the more traditional start-ups on the web, as in social and media networks, and how the mobile will shape the future. He also dealt head-on with such questions as to the leaders in fintech space, the coming big trends that will take place in the financial tech space, how government and foreign regulations affect business and how to manage the pace of change without being snowed under. Since Tal works with clients at online affiliate networks as part of Payoneer, it's no surprise that the hi-tech head shared his knowledge and experience at both the 2009 and 2012 Affiliate Summit conferences. The Affiliate Summit established by Affiliate marketing experts is recognized as the most important event in affiliate marketing. The 2012 Affiliate Summit West Conference event was held last January in Las Vegas. The 2009 Affiliate Summit East Conference was held in New York. At that conference Tal spoke about his affiliate experience working with affiliate agents, heightening Payoneer's prowess in e-commerce, and establishing various payment methods through the company. Tal was a keynote speaker at two important e-commerce conferences in Israel. First, he spoke at the one-day Take Charge 2011 Digital Commerce Summit in September 2011, which offers innovative ecommerce concepts for digital companies, vendors and affiliates. He also spoke at the Track N' Pay Summit in Tel Aviv, which was hosted by Payoneer. This one-day conference is based on concepts in Internet and mobile affiliate tracking and payment services. For both conferences, Tal spoke on behalf of his veteran online, selling, affiliate marketing, and e-commerce work at Payoneer as related to the concepts of each conference. Personal Experience: Yuval Tal was born in August 1965 in Israel and still resides there in his home country in a suburb called Ramat HaSharon, located about 20 minutes from the country's central city Tel Aviv. It was in Tel Aviv where he received university education after serving in an elite unit in the Israeli Defense Forces. He received his Bachelor of Science degree in mechanical engineering at Tel Aviv University in 1992. He went on to earn his Masters at Tel Aviv University where he studied biomedical engineering, minor in business administration.Tal has many hobbies outside the business and e-commerce realm. He likes photography and took five courses in it at the New School for General Studies and the Parsons School of Design, both in New York City. He has also been active in the Tel Aviv Nike Run, a 10 kilometer marathon throughout the city and has participated in a triathlon, which included running, biking, and swimming.

Yanki Margalit is an Israeli entrepreneur, investor, and speaker best known for starting the Internet security company Aladdin Knowledge Systems, which was sold in 2009. He is a partner in the seed investment fund Innodo Ventures and a chairman of several technology startup companies, including SpaceIL. SpaceIL is a non-profit space technologyorganization that plans to land an unmanned spaceship on the moon by 2015 and is currently competing for the Google Lunar X Prize.Yanki is also engaged with several non-profit organizations, including Idealist.org, Latet, College4all.org, Meet.mit.edu, Adama.org.il, and SpaceIL.com He has appeared as a professional speaker on technology, entrepreneurship, innovation, and human evolution, while studying and working in his more recent interests of biotechnology, clean energy, and space exploration.Described as the Israeli Singularity prophet, Yanki took a key role in introducing Singularity University in Israel. He lectures on such topics as Israel as a startup nation, the future of silicon and carbon, the maker movement, entrepreneurship and innovation, and SpaceIL’s goal to land a spaceship on the moon.

Steven Blumgart is an investor in, and board member of, a number of privately-held businesses. Until January 2012, Mr. Blumgart was Co-director of the aluminum division at Glencore International plc, one of the largest commodity trading firms in the world, valued at $40bn. Mr. Blumgart joined Swiss based Glencore in October 1998, where he served inthe coal commodity department, responsible for its industrial assets, before moving to the aluminum division. Prior to joining Glencore, Mr. Blumgart worked for three years at Grant Thornton in Johannesburg. Mr. Blumgart completed his Bachelor of Commerce (Tax Honours) degree from the University of Witwatersrand, and is a South African Chartered Accountant. In addition, Mr. Blumgart holds the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation.

Marcy Simon is Board of Advisors at Talenthouse.