I've recently volunteered to join the executive committee of a non-profit organization called Tevel. Tevel is the first angel club established in the US, focusing exclusively on bringing US angel investors together with young Israeli startups.
Tevel was founded by Oren Fuerst and Oren Heiman (more here). What got me interested in this project is Oren's (Fuerst...) description of why they started Tevel:
They floated the idea last summer, around the time of the war in Lebanon. Being Israelies in NY, they were approached by friends asking how they can help the community in Israel in a 'real' way (ie - not by giving a donation to a random organization without ever knowing if/how that helped anyone specific). Oren, coming from a business background, thought the best way to contribute would be by helping the economy, and the best way he knew was by supporting entrepreneurs in the beginning of their ventures.
With Tevel the idea is to introduce young and promising Israeli entrepreneurs to American investors. While the hope is that the investments yield investors great returns, the primary goal is to help support the entrepreneurs and through that help support the Israeli economy.
We're now looking for investors who are interested in joining the club, and entrepreneurs looking for early seed investments. If you're interested, shoot me an email (yaron [at] galai [dot] com) or go directly to the Tevel website - www.tevel.org
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