Sparking a New Era in Quantum

Entrepreneur; co-founder and ex-managing director of Weizmann Institute’s entrepreneurship program; completed his PhD in Prof. Moty Heiblum’s lab at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel working on quantum electronics and microfabrication; published works in peer-reviewed journals; received the John F. Kennedy Prize for academic excellence (2015) awarded yearly to students from the Weizmann Institute of Science; completed BSc and MSc in physics at the Ecole Normale Supérieure.

Entrepreneur; co-founder and ex-managing director of Weizmann Institute’s entrepreneurship program; completed his MSc and PhD in Prof. Moty Heiblum’s lab at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel working on quantum electronics, superconducting-semiconducting devices, and microfabrication; published works in peer-reviewed journals; completed BSc in physics and maths at the University of Washington; received the Ruth and Prof. Abraham (Edek) Blaugrund Prize for academic excellence (2018), awarded yearly to students from the Weizmann Institute of Science.

Entrepreneur and co-founder. Completed a post-doctorate position in Prof. Rob Scholkopf’s lab at Yale University, where he demonstrated for the first time worldwide, a full quantum-error-correction protocol. Completed his MSc and PhD in Prof. Moty Heiblum’s lab at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, working on quantum electronics and microfabrication; published works in peer-reviewed journals; completed BSc in physics and math, and BSc in computer science at the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology; 10+ years as software engineer at leading companies and organizations including Google, IBM, IDF, etc.

Mr. Wilenz is a serial tech entrepreneur, a prolific angel investor, and an advisor to Intel Corporation. He founded and led some of the most impressive hardware companies in Israel’s history, including Habana labs (acquired by Intel), Annapurna Labs (acquired by Amazon), Galileo Technologies (acquired by Marvell), etc. Prior to these roles, Mr. Wilenz served as Corporate Product Definition Manager/Chief Engineer for Integrated Device Technology (IDT), and as a Design Manager at Elbit Computers.

Amir Yacoby is a professor at Harvard University. Amir has been a leading researcher in the field of quantum science for more than two decades, with many contributions to quantum computation and quantum sensing. Amir received his Ph.D. from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel and has been on the Harvard faculty since 2006. Amir’s research team focuses on a multitude of different qubit technologies and approaches, including Spin qubits and NV centers. He is also a member of the National Academy of Science and a Fellow of the American Physical Society.

David Ben-Bassat is a serial entrepreneur, and an outstanding RF and MW engineer. Mr. Ben Bassat was the co-founder and VP R&D of Oryx Vision and co-founder of RFwaves (acquired by Vishay). After the acquisition of RFwaves, Mr. Ben Bassat served as VP of Corporate Development at Vishay. 

Guy is an entrepreneur and investor, leading the Alternative Investments at Harel Insurance Investments and Financial Services, the largest insurance group in Israel with over $71 billion in assets under management. Guy has invested and worked with multiple successful companies including Lemonade, Innoviz, American Well, Ecoppia, Ayala Pharma (Went Public on Nasdaq in May 2020, AYLA), Biond Biologics, Tabit, and Assured Allies. Prior to joining Harel, Guy was the Co-Founder and CEO of RondinX, a computational drug target discovery company (merged with BiomX and went public on NYSE in November 2019, PHGE).

Itzik Parnafes is a general partner at Battery Ventures. Battery Ventures is a global, technology-focused investment firm, and among the most dominant VCs in Silicon Valley. Since inception, Battery Ventures has raised over $8.9 billion and is now investing its thirteenth funds, Battery Ventures XIII and Battery Ventures XIII Side Fund, with a combined capitalization of $2 billion. Itzik has invested in and worked with multiple successful companies such as Elastifile (acquired by Google); InsertMobile (acquired by Pendo); LightCyber and Cyvera (both acquired by Palo Alto Networks); Panaya (acquired by Infosys); and XtremIO (acquired by EMC), Provigent (acq: Broadcom), Comability (acq: Ruckus Wireless), Sentrigo (acq: Symantec), and ZikBit.

Rona Segev is a founding partner at TLV Partners. TLV Partners is a venture capital firm with $270M under management and is one of the most dominant VCs in the Israeli start-up ecosystem. Rona has invested in and worked with many successful companies, including Varonis (Went Public on Nasdaq in February 2014, VRNS), Skycure (acquired by Symantec), Puresec (Acquired by Palo Alto Networks), Traiana (acquired by ICAP), Worklight (acquired by IBM), Actona (acquired by CISCO), ItemField (acquired by Informatica), Identify (acquired by BMC), Aduva (acquired by SUN), Fring (acquired by GenBend), SalesPredict (acquired by eBay) and Totango.

Prof. Scott Aaronson is a theoretical computer scientist and David J. Bruton Jr. Centennial Professor of Computer Science at the University of Texas at Austin. Scott is one of the most dominant figures worldwide in the development of algorithmics for near-term quantum computers (NISQ computers). His primary areas of research are quantum computing and computational complexity theory. Scott is among the three leading researchers in the frontier of quantum algorithmics for near-term applications. Scott received some of the most prestigious awards in computer science world-wide, including Alan T. Waterman Award, Tomassoni-Chisesi Prize, Best Paper Award of Computer Science (for the paper “The Equivalence of Sampling and Searching”) and Simons Investigator.

Shahar Kaminitz is a serial entrepreneur, co-founder and CEO of InsertMobile (acquired by Pendo) and co-founder and CEO of Worklight (acquired by IBM). Mr. Kaminitz served as Venture Partner at Gemini Israel Funds, and, prior to his entrepreneurial career, served as executive officer of the billing company Amdocs.