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Years ago, when venture capitalist Jon Medved took an interest in backing various health tech startups, he had no idea that one day, he would need them to improve his own quality of life.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Israel tight-knit startup community received a blow in October when Medved, one of its most famous VCs, announced he was retiring immediately. He was forced to step down from the firm he founded, OurCrowd, after he was diagnosed with the debilitating disease of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS,) also known as Lou Gehrig\u2019s disease.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThis has come rather sudden,\u201d he told TechCrunch in an audibly hoarse voice \u2014 a symptom of ALS \u2014 on what could be his last interview.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI had been feeling a little weird before and they didn\u2019t know what was ailing me,\u201d he explained. \u201cI was in the hospital for several weeks recovering, and that\u2019s when they tested me and said, \u2018You\u2019ve got ALS,\u2019 which is a horrible disease, the worst you can imagine.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
ALS is a condition that degrades the brain\u2019s motor neurons, leading to loss of muscle control, eventually impairing walking, talking, eating, and breathing. He didn\u2019t have the classic symptoms, as his voice was attacked first, not his extremities, he said. But he knows that the condition will worsen, and there is no cure, only therapies.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Medved is considered one of the fathers of Israel\u2019s startup ecosystem \u2014 often called \u201cStartup Nation\u201d after the decades-old best-selling book<\/a> of the same name. He helped usher it in, having moved from California to Israel in his 20s, then founding and selling several tech companies before turning to investing.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n In 2013, he founded OurCrowd. While Israel has many powerful home-grown VC firms<\/a>, as well as branches of global firms like Bessemer, OurCrowd essentially invented crowdsourced venture capital, where a limited partnership was open to any accredited investor.<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n Techcrunch event<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSan Francisco<\/span> The firm\u2019s roster attracted LPs from Asia, Europe, the Middle East and North America, growing a network of 240,000 accredited investor LPs in 195 countries, the firm says. Many of them are doctors, lawyers, and ordinary people who not only help their investment companies, but would have otherwise been cut out of the wealth generation that VCs experience.\u00a0<\/p>\n OurCrowd has backed names like Anthropic, Beyond Meat and Lemonade.\u00a0<\/p>\n Medved describes OurCrowd as now a \u201csignificant player\u201d backing about 500 portfolio companies with about 74 exits, including an exit a couple of weeks ago when its infrastructure planning startup Locusview sold for $525 million to Itron.<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n Despite Israel\u2019s conflict with Gaza, which has impacted its citizens and put the nation in global crosshairs over the Palestinian humanitarian crisis, its startup ecosystem has remained strong.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n As the \u201cstartup nation,\u201d Israel remains a key player for cybersecurity and defense tech<\/a> as well as AI, microchips, enterprise software, food tech, health tech \u2014 the whole tech stack. For example, in November, there was \u201c$800 million invested in the Israeli venture ecosystem in one week,\u201d Medved said. The country now has nearly 100 unicorns and over the year, he estimates that between $15 billion and $16 billion was invested in the country in venture deals.\u00a0<\/p>\n Now the tech of some of these startups will help him navigate life with an incurable condition.\u00a0<\/p>\n For instance, he\u2019s had an avatar made of himself that preserves his voice, face and mannerisms. (The photo\/video realistic digital twin is pictured and the full video can be seen here<\/a>.) OurCrowd AI portfolio company D-ID, maker of agents and avatars, partnered with voice AI startup ElevenLabs<\/a> and other companies through the ALS-focused Scott-Morgan Foundation<\/a> to create an avatar system designed for people with ALS.<\/p>\n He just experienced this tech during a Zoom call with another person who has ALS who was using the avatar to communicate.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cSo this stuff has become very, very personal to me,\u201d Medved said. \u201cIt will preserve my voice when it goes.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n But he said there will be a variety of startups tech he will lean on.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve made 60, 70 healthcare investments in good companies that help people. We\u2019ve got a company called OncoHost, which uses AI to help select what kind of immunotherapy will actually work for you \u2026\u00a0 We have companies doing next-generation sequencing for the genome. We have companies doing chronic condition management,\u201d he catalogs.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI tell you now as a once-healthy person [who took health for granted] I felt human pain and disease, but once you are actually engaged in one of these nasty diseases, it changes your perspective,\u201d Medved shared.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n All of this means that, even though he\u2019s given up his position running the company and may be retiring from the public eye, \u201cI\u2019m far from over, ok? I want to continue to contribute, both to OurCrowd and the overall ecosystem. So I fully intend to not go off [quietly] into this good night.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n And in the end, he says \u201cI\u2019m very proud that in a small way, even though all we are is investors, to be part of this movement.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n A video featuring Medved\u2019s \u201cdigital twin\u201d demonstrates just how realistic his avatar already is.<\/p>\n \n
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tOctober 13-15, 2026<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n