Just a short note to offer big congratulations to the amazing team at The Gifts Project on their acquisition by eBay.
We’ve had a relatively short relationship since we were lucky enough to have been introduced 12 months ago by Yossi Vardi in Tel Aviv, but it’s been an absolute pleasure and privilege to work with Ron, Erez, Matan, Maya and Eyal as they set about defining the landscape for social commerce from a small but killer office above an awesome restaurant on what has become the most famous road in Israel in the last 12 months.
There are lots of changes afoot in the start-up nation and this team (killer), their mission (huge) and their approach (lean) is symptomatic of a much larger wave that I believe we will start to see rolling in the next 5 years from Israel. Spending the last 12 months in Herzilya has been a massive education for me personally and professionally – it’s been thrilling to get a much closer insight into one of the true gems of the global technology ecosystem.
eBay are both very smart and lucky to have these guys on board - and having been through the experience myself of working as part of eBay after the (first) Skype acquisition in 2005, I know how much you can learn as entrepreneur and operator being part of one of the world’s defining technology businesses. I first met some amazing friends in that time and learnt from some of the smartest and best people in the business.
We’ve made nearly 30 investments through Index Seed in the last 20 months (yes, we are due for an update!) and fellow travellers have always been a big part of our approach, so we were thrilled to partner with Yossi Sella and Gil Dibner at Gemini on this deal.
So Kol HaKavod to all involved and looking forward to many, many more waves of such positive, socially inspired light coming out of Israel.