Nationality Israel Occupation Hi-Tech Investor | Name Shlomo Kalish Role Investor | |
Born 1952 (age 63–64) Haifa, Israel Education Tel Aviv University (1974–1977), Massachusetts Institute of Technology | ||
Dr. Shlomo Kalish at Facing Tomorrow 2011
Shlomo Kalish, Ph.D., is the Founder and Managing Partner at Jerusalem Global Ventures. He is known as one of the first and most successful hi-tech investors in Israel.
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Early life
Shlomo Kalish was born in 1952 in Haifa, Israel to Issacher Dov and Haya Kalish- both Holocaust survivors. Kalish served as a fighter pilot from 1971–1975, which included the Yom Kippur War.
Education
In 1977, Kalish received a B.Sc. in Mathematics from Tel Aviv University. He completed an M.Sc. and a PhD at MIT's Sloan School In 1981 he began teaching at the University of Rochester. In 1985 he joined the Management Faculty of Tel Aviv University, and established a hi-tech consulting business.
Career
In 1999 Kalish founded Jerusalem Global Ventures, a Jerusalem-based VC. Kalish also served as General Partner of Concord Ventures I, LP from 1997-1999. Dr. Kalish led investments in Saifun Semiconductors, Oridion Medical, Oren Semiconductors, Creo, QXL, Mellanox Technologies, Picturevision and Galileo. In 1999, Kalish also founded Yazam.com, one of the first accelerators aimed at internet projects in Israel. Yazam was later sold to U.S. Technologies.
In 2007, Kalish was ranked number 39 on the Forbes Midas List, and first for the Israelis on the list by Forbes Magazine. Kalish was a Managing Partner at Vaizra Israel from 2010-2016, a division of Vaizra Investments. Vaizra was founded by Yitzhak (Viatcheslav) Mirilashvili, a former founder of VKontakte.
Community
Shlomo Kalish is a board member at the charity Shalom Beineinu, which he founded. He is also on the Board of Trustees of the Jerusalem College of Technology and the Technion Israel Institute of Technology.