By Roy Goldenberg
Globes, Tel Aviv, Israel.
Every entrepreneur is familiar with the elevator pitch a brief speech to convince investors to pitch in their money. Terra Venture Partners decided to take the idea to a different mode of transportation: the rail car.
In cooperation with Israel Railways, the fund hosted 160 entrepreneurs from 65 startups as they tried their hand at pitching their ventures to 12 investors while riding on the train from Nahariya, through Tel Aviv, to Beersheva.
The investors who took part sat in a special rail car with Terra representatives; they included officials from German conglomerate Bosch which “Globes” recently revealed to be opening an R&D center in Israel and officials from Tyco, which has also been increasingly active in the local startup scene.
Many other companies were also represented on the “money train”, including eBay, Poalim Hi-Tech, Vertex Ventures, Elbit’s Beersheva incubator Incubit, and Deloitte.
Barak Goldstein, a Terra partner and Terralab CEO, said “the idea came from the realization that we needed to give a platform for the startup community from Israel’s periphery, to meet face to face with leaders from various sectors.
“Part of the goal of the event was to shed a light on entrepreneurs located outside of Israel’s center and to give them direct exposure to investors. The event was a great success; the interaction between the entrepreneurs and the investors on the train was excellent and will surely lead to exciting cooperation between them.”
