Gigi Levy-Weiss

Gigi Levy-Weiss
Born Gigi Levy
Israel
Residence Ramat HaSharon, Israel
Education Tel Aviv University
Alma mater Kellogg School of Management
Occupation Business executive, Investor
Years active 1996-present
Organization NFX Guild
Known for Former CEO of 888 Holdings
Founding partner at NFX Guild
Spouse(s) Daphi Levy-Weiss
Children 3
Website Gigi Levy at About.me
Gigi Levy LinkedIn

Gigi Levy-Weiss (born Gigi Levy, Israel) is a business executive and angel investor who works primarily with internet, software and gaming companies.[1] He is currently involved with various startup companies including SimilarWeb, Plarium, myThings, Hola, MyHeritage, and Kenshoo.[2] He is the former CEO for online gambling company 888 Holdings, and is on the board of the Israeli-Palestinian nonprofit organization MEET, being formerly involved with Latet.[3] In 2014 he co-founded the investment firm and business accelerator NFX Guild.[4] He joined the supervisory board at Bertelsmann SE & Co. KGaA in Germany in May 2015.[2]

Early life, education

Gigi Levy (later named Gigi Levy-Weiss) was born and raised in Israel. He speaks English, Spanish, French, and Hebrew.[2]

Before attending college[5] Levy-Weiss was a pilot[6] in the Israeli Air Force.[7] In October 2002 he started attending the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University in Chicago,[8] where he earned his MBA[5] in May 2004.[2]

Career

Early positions

Early in his career Levy-Weiss worked with his own startup company,[7] also holding a number of management[6] and consulting positions[8] with technology companies[5] in Israel and the UK.[6] Among those roles he was CEO of Giltek Telecommunication, a publicly traded telecom systems integrator.[6]

From 2003 to 2005[2] he was Vice President of Western Europe for Amdocs Limited (NASDAQ: DOX), an international telecommunications software company.[8] The following year he became Division President for the company[2] for Western Europe, and Central and Latin America.[2][8]

888 Holdings

Main article: 888 Holdings

On June 18, 2006, Levy-Weiss joined the company 888 Holdings as their Chief Operating Officer (COO). Founded in 1997, 888 Holdings operates several high-profile gambling websites. He was COO until January 2007,[8] when he became the company's CEO.[9] During his tenure, the company weathered the 2006 enactment of UIGEA and the Global Financial Crisis of 2008. Levy-Weiss pushed the company to focus on online poker rooms and casinos, leading to a number of buyout options.[9][10][11] His position as a CEO officially ended on May 31, 2011,[8] though he remained on the board for an additional twelve months, assisting in the transition to a new CEO.[11]

Early investing

After leaving 888 Holdings, Levy-Weiss has served as an investor, board member, and in some cases a co-founder for a number of technology companies in Israel, San Francisco and London.[5] Many of the startups he invests in have involved online commerce, advertising technologies, mobile applications, gaming, and SaaS spaces.[6][12]

Since 2007 he has been a board member at MassiveImpact,[2] also serving as a director.[8] He was an investor and board member for SweetIM from 2009 to 2013,[2] which was acquired by Perion.[7] Perion purchased SweetPacks, maker of SweetIM, in November 2012 for approximately $41 million.[13]

He first invested in Playtika in 2010.[2] In 2011, over half of Playtika's shares were acquired by casino operator Harrah's Entertainment's at a company value of $80–90 million, in what was the largest acquisition on record of an Israeli online gaming company.[14] The total sum of the two stages of the buyout for Playtika was rumored to be around $140 million USD.[15]

Israeli company Promodity, an advertising platform, announced in August 2012 that Levy-Weiss had invested in the company.[12] That month Levy-Weiss also invested in the company Bizzabo.[16] He has been a board member at Global-e since 2013,[2] and late that year he invested in Space Ape Games, an English social games company.[17]

He also has invested in startups such as the technology company Kenshoo.[7] Other investments include companies Crossrider (later acquired for $37million),[18] Plarium, R2Net,[7] Eyeview, RealMatch, Lovelive.tv, NonoRep, Gooodjob, Superfly, SpeakingPal, Ekoloko, TradeO, Zoomd, Moovu, and Moolta,[6] (which was acquired by SimilarWeb).[19]

NFX Guild

In January 2015, he cofounded NFX Guild with his friends James Currier and Stan Chudnovsky, both entrepreneurs and investors based in California.[4] Levy-Weiss is a partner at NFX, which is an accelerator and venture funding firm based in the Silicon Valley in the United States,[20] named for "Network Effects."[21] In September 2015, TechCrunch reported that NFX had "plans to run a three-month-long program twice a year for between 10 and 15 companies," with the companies selected by scouts instead of applying in a public process. One third of the initial scouted companies were from Israel, such as Genome Compiler.[22] The firm invests in internet and software companies which have "network effects" embedded in their business, such as social networks and marketplaces.[23] Levy-Weiss has described the firm as focusing on value creation in digital technology leveraging the "network effect," where each new user adds "value to the system".[24]

Current companies

As of 2014 he is an investor in the following active companies, many of which are based in Israel:[2]

Memberships

Levy-Weiss has been involved with a number of non-profit organizations in Israel,[5] notably serving on the management board for Israeli humaniatrian fund Latet[3] from 2008 to 2013.[2] He became a board member at the non-profit MEET - Middle East Entrepreneurs of Tomorrow in November 2013.[2]

In 2014, Levy-Weiss was appointed to Facebook's EMEA Client Council, a marketing forum including representatives from brands and agencies of Europe, Africa and the Middle East, together with Facebook leaders.[25][26] Nicola Mendelsohn is the Council's Vice-President.[26]

At Tel Aviv University, his alma mater, Levy-Weiss is on the advisory board of the Technology Management, Innovation and Entrepreneurship MBA program.[6] He joined the supervisory board at Bertelsmann SE & Co. KGaA in Germany in May 2015.[2]

He has been a speaker at conferences such as Com.vention,[6] Casual Connect, and others.[27]

Personal life

Levy-Weiss and his wife, Daphi Levy-Weiss, live in the Israeli city of Ramat HaSharon with their three young children.[7]

References

  1. ↑ "Gigi Levy: Executive Profile & Biography". BusinessWeek. McGraw-Hill. Retrieved 23 August 2009.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 "Gigi Levy". LinkedIn. Retrieved 2014-03-12.
  3. 1 2 Cook, Holly (July 15, 2009). "10 rounds with the CEO - Interview: Q&A session with 888 Holding's Gigi Levy". MorningStar. Retrieved 2014-03-12.
  4. 1 2 Abramowitz, Zach (October 25, 2015). "Israel Vs. Silicon Valley: A Conversation with Gigi Levy Weiss". TechCrunch. Retrieved December 4, 2015.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 Levy, Gigi. "I am Gigi and IMA Ventures is my investment vehicle". IMA Ventures (IApple). Retrieved 2014-03-12.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 "Speakers - Gigi Levy Weiss: About Me". Com.vention. 2012. Retrieved 2014-03-12.
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Profile". Gigi Levy at About.me. Retrieved 2014-03-12.
  8. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "888 holdings plc (888:London): Executive Profile Gigi Levy". BusinessWeek. Retrieved 2014-03-12.
  9. 1 2 Arnott, Sarah (April 11, 2011). "888 denies link to Ladbrokes talks as chief executive Gigi Levy steps down". The Independent. Retrieved 2014-03-12.
  10. ↑ Burton, Earl (April 12, 2011). "Gigi Levy Out as 888 CEO". Poker News Daily. Retrieved 2014-03-12.
  11. 1 2 Osbourne, Alistair (April 11, 2011). "Gigi Levy stays at 888 to avoid Wink Bingo charge". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 2014-03-12.
  12. 1 2 Tiku, Nitasha (August 3, 2012). "Gigi Levy-Weiss and Israeli Angels Back Ad Platform Promodity". BetaBeat. Retrieved 2014-03-12.
  13. ↑ "Perion Announces Accretive Acquisition of SweetPacks". businesswire.com. Retrieved 2013-09-23.
  14. ↑ Tsipori, Tali (May 18, 2011). "Playtika's young founders win big on casino acquisition". Globes. Retrieved 2014-03-12.
  15. ↑ "Entrepreneurs Fliitika two years after Israel's fastest exit "hiring"". The Marker. December 11, 2013. Retrieved 2014-03-12. (Hebrew)
  16. ↑ Alroy, Alon (August 22, 2012). "Announcing Our $1.5M Financing Round to Maximize Event Networking". Bizzabo Blog. Retrieved 2014-03-12.
  17. ↑ Takahashi, Dean (October 13, 2013). "After Playfish, social-game veterans return with Samurai Siege, earning $50K a day". VentureBeat. Retrieved 2014-03-12.
  18. ↑ "Start-up CrossRider is sold for $37m". Haaretz. December 17, 2012. Retrieved 2014-03-12.
  19. ↑ "Exit Blue - white two week: SimilarWeb Acquires Israeli Tapdog". Geektime. Retrieved 2014-03-12.
  20. ↑ "Team". NFX.com. Retrieved December 4, 2015.
  21. ↑ Goldenberg, Roy (August 18, 2015). "NFX Guild accelerator unveils summer 2015 class". Globes. Retrieved December 4, 2015.
  22. ↑ "James Currier And Stan Chudnovsky Take The Wraps Off Their New Incubator, NFX Guild". TechCrunch. Retrieved December 4, 2015.
  23. 1 2 3 Takahashi, Dean (October 20, 2015). "How one Israeli investor overcomes fears and continues to invest in games". VentureBeat. Retrieved December 4, 2015.
  24. ↑ "Article on NFX in Hebrew". Globes. Retrieved December 4, 2015.
  25. ↑ McLeod, Ishbel. "Facebook introduces EMEA client council with Nestlé, Unilever, Red Bull, BMW and Mondelez on board". The Drum. The DrumThe Drum. Retrieved 29 February 2016.
  26. 1 2 Mendelsohn, Nicola. "Introducing the EMEA Client Council". Facebook for business. Facebook. Retrieved 29 February 2016.
  27. ↑ "CASUAL CONNECT TEL AVIV 2015 Speakers". CasualConnect. Retrieved December 4, 2015.

External links

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