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5.0 Living on a Different Planet
Fund: Pitango Venture Capital
Posted by Anonymous on 2007-09-07
Pitango has been steadily on the decline. The fund that was considered to be one of pillars of the VC industry in Israel has lost its stature to the Silicon valley brand names that have appeared in the Israeli VC scene. However, the partners there refused to accept the fact that they don't enjoy any monopoly on the best dealflow and talent and still act in a very arrogant and unprofessional manner. Most partners there lack any operating experience that is necessary to help build successful companies (although they would tell you otherwise). In practice, the fund is really managed by Chemi Peres who is very smart and influential person in Israel and abroad. Chemi is a very hard worker but lacks any bandwidth and is very arrogant in his style and the way he deals with people so it would be difficult working with him. Aaron Mankovski is basically a hot headed simpleton who is convinced that he has the patent on the right formula on how to build successful companies. He is a very terrible listener and very difficult to deal with and having him on your board would be a recipe for disaster. Rami Kalish is very sharp, intuitive person but typically unfocused and unreliable to entrepreneurs. Isaac Hillel is the only senior partner there with real operating experience background. He is very sharp and capable but tends to be very hasty and slow in his decision making. Overall, the fund is very difficult to deal with, their decision process is very slow and don't expect to hear back from them with any answer. They would only respond if there is competitive pressures and could be surprisingly aggressive at times. Overall, the value add is very limited and it is very rare to see any entrepreneur that chooses to go back to working with Pitango.
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