Amir Elichai, founder and CEO of Reporty Homeland Security, discusses raising $60 million to develop advanced technology for 911 calls.
Amir Elichai, founder and CEO of Reporty Homeland Security, discusses raising $60 million to develop advanced technology for 911 calls. The video covers the process and insights related to securing a significant funding round, suggesting it falls into the Series B+ category.
what we want to do is to connect basically you know the world into public safety to connect the public safety into the world if you can you know improve that system and and make it more efficient every successful company needs two things cash flow and good people alrighty hello everyone and welcome to the deal maker show so super excited you know with the guests that we have today again startup nation i mean there seems to be a machine there of incredible founders that is pumping one after the other so i guess without further ado let's welcome our guest today amir ali chai welcome to the show thank you thank you very much how are you very well so you were born in israel in tel aviv there so how is life growing up there oh i think israel is the probably most amazing place on earth the amazing combination between good people good weather good food all together and uh obviously the great
ecosystem for companies like carbine to succeed so overall i would give it the grade of a 9.5 i would say very cool and and in terms of you growing up did you have anyone in the family or or how did you get that perhaps a drive or that bug around entrepreneurship would that develop later on or it was something that it was there in the back door uh always uh nurturing no actually it's a good question actually my two uh two of my parents are full-time workers in a very kind of well-organized big corporates my mom in the healthcare space my father in the aerospace industry nor entrepreneurship at all i think the biggest investment that they ever did is when they bought their home and since they're you know working on their savings nothing really behind that um probably something raised from the army probably something raised from the my personal experience and things that i've been through
but nothing came from my personal you know personal background i would say so then going to the army because the army is a pretty big deal in israel i mean every everyone has to go through it so in your case you know i find that you know being an entrepreneur and doing startups is like going to war right it's a it's just kind of like the same thing you know it's in a different way uh you don't probably get hurt physically you know let's say but it's still a painful you know full of emotions you know type of roller coaster so i guess what how was that experience for you of doing the army and and you know what were some of those um traits that that it gave you now you know that you're an entrepreneur oh this is a great question so i think um in general you know being in the army when you were 18 you know instead of going to college or university you basically found yourself in a very kind
of a strict organization with certain rules that you have to accommodate which is basically probably making the israelis i would say a bit more mature earlier than others and put you in front of dilemmas and situation that you're not really supposed to experience when you're 18 years old if you're looking at the overall kind of world and what people in our age used to do so of course for everything you have problems and cones so i would say that the advantage of being in the army is basically it's kind of uh show you you know how to treat uh kind of things that are related to work under pressure how to you know being well in in kind of a big teams where you have to get along with people that you don't know how to motivate people how to motivate your subordinates work on blood pressure putting red lines but if you're thinking about those things are very similar to things that you're going
to do as an entrepreneur as a ceo within your internal small organization that is like your kind of own small unit within the army so of course that there is nothing to to really compare between the two and as you said there is no not risking your life but being an entrepreneur being a a founder with another two or three founders that are working with you this is kind of your small unit or small unit in the army that is now as you said going into the world and going going into a fight with big giants to tackle something and if you have those skills coming from the army um so i think it's increasing your situation to be more successful not always of course but it's absolutely giving you kind of a lesson that you won't be able to learn anywhere else so in your case after the army you pack the bags and you land in new york city so how how did that happen oh this is uh was an absolutely kind
of uh i would say a coincidence actually in my specific unit where i was we had uh different agencies and entities that came to us to teach us what we can do after the army so while a lot of my friends went to you know very long trip in latin america you know did they one year after the army losing their mind somewhere drinking and doing other stuff i don't know why but i had a girlfriend at the end of the army and basically we had a vision kind of to move and live in new york um so in one of the pitches that we received from one of the three letter agencies of the israeli defense forces at the end of the presentation i came and said listen this is very interesting i would love to do it so say okay we have we have an openings in ethiopia in egypt in many like different places i said no no no you don't you you got it wrong i will do it only in one place i will do new york if you want i
said let you know what let me come back to you because it was very unusual because on the one hand it's very attractive and sexy to live in new york on the other hand when you're finishing the army all what you want is to save money and obviously new york is not a great place to save money in so i found myself here anyway like uh i i finished the army 10 days after i started the course for like few months and then moved to live in new york uh celebrate my i think 23rd 24th birthday here in new york an amazing amazing experience with basically opened my mind to a new new world different opportunities new kind of people and the rest of the story so how would you say because i mean it's interesting because i also moved to new york city at the same age as you did uh and for me it was an eye-opener i mean i'm sure that for you being surrounded by the best of every place in the world that you
can think of in terms of like intellect the ambition and all of that i'm sure that that played quite an influence as well on you and and the way that you're thinking about the future that you want to live into so so tell us about this yeah i think it's starting from you know the smallest thing that you can imagine first of all the transition from being in the army you know in a such a kind of uh i would not say boring because it's not boring but it's very kind of uh you know structured place where there is no too much space to think out of the box you have certain rules you have to accommodate suddenly you'll find yourself without your family without your friends being kind kind of alone in front of the world in in the biggest city in the world in terms of you know all what you just mentioned you know talent business traffic you know people are running everywhere buildings you you're
kind of asking yourself okay what is my role in this huge concrete jungle and you basically your brand start to think you know what can i do how can i leverage this place how can i do more uh and i remind you that at that time i worked for like one of the agencies if the ministry of defense so it's not that i was basically jobless or something i had enough things to do but basically you are here you're meeting people um and you're saying okay uh this is an amazing place i have an opportunity how can i tag that to the next step and basically it's absolutely opened my eyes for uh for what other things you can do in this world which is uh you know not the thing that you used to see in israel which is pretty small and kind of uh limited place i would say and i guess it opened your eyes towards becoming potentially a lawyer at least study laws i mean why were you thinking i mean from
recovering lawyer to recovering lawyer i mean what was going through your head to study law no this is a good question so basically i started here my first company in new york and then it was kind of a virtual investment banking theory and at that time i used to work for certain people who told me that you know you have to get kind of a degree and you have to uh you know learn something so i i after one and a half years i went back to israel i graduated from law and business school and i immediately realized and i knew from the beginning that law that i'm not going to be a lawyer i never practice but i think that law in general is kind of the new ba right it's like like the basic that you need to know and it's relevant for everything that you are doing normally if you are a ceo cfo salesperson uh working in product management or whatever at the end of the day you know legal
understandings in general…