Nurturing Australian, Israeli start-ups
Former Australian ambassador to Israel Dave Sharma is spearheading a new capital-raising venture together with Jewish community figures.
Incubating a growing list of Australian technology companies – some of them minnows – by introducing them to larger Israeli counterparts that have thrived in Israel’s start-up culture is the role of a new capital-raising venture spearheaded by Dave Sharma, a former Australian ambassador to Israel.
The ex-member for Wentworth has partnered with Sydney Jewish community figures Andrew Silberberg, a corporate lawyer originally from Melbourne who worked at law firm Arnold Bloch Leibler, and Jeremy Waine, a former investment banker at Commonwealth Bank Australia, in the newly founded SWG Capital.
The consultancy is a boutique corporate advisory and investment service for start-ups. Sharma met Silberberg (who is on the board of the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council) and Waine during his time as ambassador and later during his term as a Liberal MP.
Speaking to The AJN, Sharma said SWG Capital (comprising the first letters of the partners’ surnames) is focusing on Australian developers in a number of markets, including medical devices, biotech, SaaS (cloud-based software-as-a-service), the circular economy (custodianship of products from their development through to post-consumer waste), and the rapidly growing artificial-intelligence space.
“Usually these businesses have got technology and products, maybe a couple of customers and a small amount of revenue, but they’re looking to raise their first formal round of capital, having funded the business through friends and family and their personal capital,” he noted.
Aiming to create win-win scenarios, the trio will leverage their connections to Israel to mentor relationships between small Australian tech developers and more technologically advanced Israeli counterparts that have their origins in centres such as the Weizmann Institute and the Technion, and have usually completed their early rounds of funding in Israel through individual ‘angel’ investors and venture capital.
“We’re talking to a number of companies in Israel that have interesting technologies with global application that are looking to support them here, including capital-raising and entry into market,” he said.
SWG Capital is also “looking to strengthen Australia–Israel economic ties, particularly in the innovation and entrepreneurial sectors, which is obviously something I was very passionate about when I was the ambassador to Israel”, said Sharma, who developed strong connections in the technology sectors of Israel and Australia during his diplomatic years, when he facilitated numerous visits to Israel by Australian tech entrepreneurs.
Sharma said Israeli tech development has a stronger focus on transformational “deep technology”, risk-taking and a more global outlook, while Australian entrepreneurs tend to be more risk-averse and focused on the domestic market.
His posting gave him “a good appreciation of the Israeli founder mindset and the way they look at these opportunities, which is not always the way Australian markets work, and giving investors and entrepreneurs a way of looking at some of these opportunities”.
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