RDSeed, Interview with CEO Nimrod May

nimrodmayNimrod May is a marketing and creative development professional with meaningful experiences at GetTaxi, Perion and Disney/Jetix. As a CEO of RDSeed, an Israeli firm investing in high risk, early stage ventures, he helps startups grow and get to the market. They just invested in GetYou’s $1.1m round (read here).

FinSMEs: Hi Nimrod, thank you for joining us. Firstly, what’s your background?
Nimrod May: I am the CEO of RDSeed, bringing years of experience in international leadership positions in marketing and business to the company. Prior to RDSeed I was the global VP of marketing at GetTaxi, VP of social networks anad marketing at Perion and the head of marketing at the Disney/Jetix channel in Israel.

FinSMEs: What’s RDSeed? And what’s its focus and investment strategy?
Nimrod May: RDSeed is an investment company that invests in high risk, early stage ventures, RDSeed is powered by Rafael Development Corporation (RDC), which is a collaboration between Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd and Elron Electronic Industries. RDSeed brings to its startups the entire umbrella of the joint venture whether if it’s technology support by Rafael and business, finance legal expertise of Elron & in house expertise of marketing and business development. RDSeed investment focuses on Mobile, Cloud, IT technologies and we are now looking on doing Cyber security investments.

FinSMEs: Personally, what do you like to see in startup founders? What don’t you like to see in them?
Nimrod May: I like to see that founders have integrity, resourcefulness, sense of true mission to make a change with their company, ownership, leadership and that they are team players.

FinSMEs: What don’t you like to see in them?
Nimrod May: Ego, lack of tolerance to other people opinions, dishonesty and being self-centered are things that are unappealing.

FinSMEs: Speak about some trends…fintech, IoT and wearable tech, virtual reality, etc. Personally, which one do you bet on?
Nimrod May: Disruptive technologies are a fact, in that economic models are changing every minute and in many cases, changing faster than the market can adopt them. This holds true especially if they are acting in highly regulated markets e.g. Uber and Lyft.
Keeping a finger on the pulse for any investor is a must, especially if the things we observe will become a trend. We need to be ahead of the curve – e.g. IOT is here to stay and can be very synergistic with AR technologies – so instead of us pulling information, it will be pushed to us. 3D printing, new currencies, automation as never seen before and to keep all this safe, the protocols will need higher protections, which means that cyber security will play a major role. So I guess I am betting on all the above, but the thing that I like to track most is the private space travel industries.

FinSMEs: Israel is considered the best environment to grow startups? Is it true? What can you tell me?
Nimrod May: Israel, like any other place, has it’s pros and cons. It’s a country which consists of many very talented people, as the environment and circumstances are a key factor to create the most important thing, which is motivation (combined with the right innovation) means that startups can do very well. I find though that many entrepreneurs, especially the first timers (we have a lot of them), are lacking the experience to do business development, sales and most importantly, market their ideas globally. This is especially true when the company is targeting consumers and SMB’s, not necessarily the enterprises.

FinSMEs

17/07/2014

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