Oren Zeev
Oren Zeev | |
|---|---|
| Born | September 23, 1964 Haifa, Israel |
| Alma mater | BSc cum laude Elecetrical Engineering, Technion, Israel. MBA with Distinction, INSEAD, France |
| Occupation(s) | Venture Capitalist, Entrepreneur, Angel Investor, and Managing Partner of Zeev Ventures. |
| Spouse | Hagit Zeev |
Oren Zeev is an Israeli-American venture capitalist and head of Zeev Ventures, a Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm with early-round investments in technology companies. Zeev has had notable investments in Houzz, Audible, Chegg, and TripActions. He is co-founder and co-chairman of ICON, a non-profit organization focused on bridging Israeli and Silicon Valley technology and business.[1]
Engineering career
Zeev graduated BsC Cum Laude, EE from Technion-Machon Technologi Le’ Israel, and earned an MBA with Distinction in Business from INSEAD in France.
Zeev developed and implemented image and signal processing algorithms prior to his career as a venture capitalist. He was a Research staff member at IBM and part of the founding team of IBM's chip design group in Haifa, Israel.
Investment career
Following his time at IBM, Zeev spent 12 years at Apax Partners as a General Partner. He joined in January 1995 as part of the founding team of Apax Israel. In 2002, Zeev moved to the US and co-headed, and later headed, the Technology Practice of Apax and its Silicon Valley office.
His first investment was Audible where he was also a board member. Audible had their initial public offering in 1999.[2] Zeev continued to work for Apax until 2006. Audible was later acquired by Amazon in 2008.[3]
In 2007, Zeev established Zeev Ventures in Palo Alto to focus on early-stage companies. At Zeev Ventures, he has been an early investor and has held board and chairmanships at various companies including Houzz,[4] Chegg, Homelight, Tipalti,[5] TripActions,[6] and Next Insurance. For Houzz, Zeev led the Series A round in the company in 2010, and then invested another $20 million from his fund, Zeev Ventures, expanding on the 8% of the company he already owned.[7]
In 2019, Zeev was profiled by CNBC on how chooses start-ups for investment.[8]
Personal life
Zeev was born in Haifa, Israel in 1964. He moved to California with his wife, Hagit Zeev, and 2 children in 2002.[9] Zeev currently lives in Los Altos Hills, California.
References
- ^ "How Israeli Expats In Silicon Valley Produce Winning Startups". Inc.com.
- ^ "Audible went public on 1999-07-16". Crunchbase.
- ^ "Amazon to buy Audible for $300 million". Reuters.
- ^ "Houzz's Founders Have Become Tech's Newest Power Couple". Forbes.
- ^ "Why I Decided to Lead Tipalti's Series C Round of Funding". Medium.
- ^ "TripActions launches its business travel app and unveils a $14.6 million round". House of Bots.
- ^ "Houzz's $4B Valuation Sets Investor Oren Zeev Apart". Forbes.
- ^ "How this venture capitalist chooses start-ups for investments". CNBC.
- ^ "Meet Oren Zeev, Silicon Valley's Builder-Investor". TechCrunch.