Roy Erez
Founder of BookOutdoors
Roy Erez
Founder of BookOutdoors
Los Altos, California
Overview
Work Experience
Founding Partner
2021 - Current
www.r2vc.com R-Squared: “A model intended to predict future outcomes”. And the two Roy's behind it. We're an 'Operators Fund'. Entrepreneurs, founders and CEOs that started, ran, scaled and sold start-up companies. Then as corporate executives post the acquisition. Invested as angels in over two dozen start-up companies before starting R-Squared. Passionate about supporting the companies and the founders we're backing. R-Squared Ventures was founded as an extension to our personal investments. Now backed by ~80 leading entrepreneurs, founders, CEOs and investors that as our LPs - in Silicon Valley and Israel - want to be part of our investments and extend their experience, network and support to our companies. We're excited about backing strong founders - with the drive, passion and ability to execute on a real problem, in a sizable market, with a big vision, and a defensible solution and path to succeed. Primarily focused on Enterprise/SMB SaaS and AI, Vertical-specific Technologies (including TaxTech, LegalTech, InsureTech), Fintech, and E-Commerce Enablement. Though we also invested in other categories, such as B2C, Gaming, AgTech, and others.
Co-Founder and Board Member
2021
BookOutdoors is reimagining what the outdoor travel experience can and should be. Funded by top VCs alongside angel investors from the largest travel and hospitality companies, including C-level executives from Expedia, Booking.com, TripAdvisor, and Orbitz. *** Company is hiring - ping me ***
Angel Investor and Strategic Advisor
2018
As an active early-stage angel investor and advisor, I partner closely with start-up founders & CEOs – sharing my experiences and offering guidance as they face their own challenges and opportunities. Categories include (but not limited to) Fintech, Digital Commerce, Enterprise SaaS. Shareholder in: * Tipalti. Automating the global payables operation. Investors: Zeev Ventures (Oren Zeev), G Squared, Morgan Stanley * Donut. Employee social collaboration. Investors: Accel, Bloomberg, Slack Fund * Stackbit (acquired by Netlify). Platform for customizable websites. Investors: Zeev Ventures (Oren Zeev), Kleiner Perkins * Wi-Charge. Groundbreaking technology for true wireless charging * BeeHero. AgTech platform, dramatically increasing crop yields. Investors: Rabo Innovation, Plug & Play, UpWest * Buywith. Online shopping livestream and collaboration platform * Voca.ai (acquired by Snap). AI powered natural speaking virtual agents * Immunai. Mapping and decoding the immune system thru single-cell technologies and machine-learning. Investors: Koch, 8VC, Viola Group, TLV Partners * Voyantis. AI based no-code growth platform. Investors: Target Global, Square Peg * Laguna. Revolutionizing the private corporate healthcare industry. Investors: Pitango * Justt. Disrupting merchants' chargebacks thru AI. Investors: Zeev Ventures (Oren Zeev), F2 VC, Oak. * Darrow. AI powered legal claim mining. Investors: F2 VC, Entree, NFX, YC, Georgian * Polar Security (acquired by IBM). Cybersecurity. Investors: Glilot * Text Blaze. Workflow automation. Investors: Two Sigma. * Roar Studios (acquired by Yuga Labs). A platform at the convergence of music, gaming and social media for musicians. * LibLab. SDK as a Service. Investors: Zeev Ventures, Insight Partners. * Arya. Couples' wellness. * Loop. A social platform for matchmaking. * and others...
Contributor
2019 - 2020
Was invited to be a contributor in the Fintech section of Forbes, and write about fintech, innovation in retail and entrepreneurship.
SVP, General Manager - Loop Commerce
2018 - 2020
Loop was acquired by Synchrony (NYSE: SYF, a Fortune 200 company) in mid-2018. I continued to run Loop as a wholly owned subsidiary after the acquisition, serving as CEO and as a GM and SVP with Synchrony. As part of Synchrony we are now able to significantly fuel the investment in our customers and partners, as well as accelerate our technological innovation and market leadership.
CEO and Co-Founder
2012 - 2020
Loop disrupts fintech, retail and commerce with its patented, award-winning GiftNow® technology and service. Inspired by Behavioral Economics, and working closely with Prof Dan Ariely, Loop pioneered the gift-commerce category - inventing and developing a new experience and capability for digital gift purchases. A B2B2C model, Loop's enterprise-grade, SaaS solution was offered by many leading brands and retailers including Target, Neiman Marcus, Saks, Coach, Michael Kors, Kate Spade, American Eagle, Uniqlo and many others. By re-imagining the gifting experience and tackling the roadblocks associated with a >$1 Trillion annual G-Commerce category (a term we coined), retailers and brands are able to unlock new opportunities and fuel increased business through incremental sales, improving customer acquisition, loyalty, and reducing costly returns. Loop became a market leader, created an end-to-end solution, encompassing the consumer experience, payments processing, stored value activation, fraud management, data analytics and insights, marketing tools and best practices. In 2017, Loop was awarded the prestigious “Most Innovative Payments and Commerce” award from PYMNTS. Prior to its acquisition, Loop raised $30 million from incredible investors including Oren Zeev, PayPal, and some of the most influential leaders in technology, fintech, e-commerce and retail. Loop continues to transform how commerce and retail players taps “shopping for others” while creating new opportunities and strategies in omnichannel retail, gift cards, corporate gifting and contextual commerce. In mid 2018 Loop was acquired by Synchrony, the market leader in credit, private label cards and loyalty, with over $100 billion in transactions, and 75 million consumers. Kept as a wholly owned subsidiary, Loop is able to accelerate its product and technological innovation, consumer reach and strategic value for its customers and partners.
SVP, Worldwide Sales & Business Development
2009 - 2012
Responsible for all business and revenue related activities. Leads worldwide OEM and Channel Sales as well as global Corporate and Business Development, and has a key role in guiding the company’s overall business and product strategy. With growth and industry recognition due to recent activities, Luidia products are today distributed in over 80 countries as well as in the market via OEM partnerships with leading manufactures such as HP, Hitachi, Chief, 3M, Sony, Mitsubishi, NEC, Ricoh and Polycom. Luidia takes content capture and collaboration to the next level. The eBeam product line is a combination of sophisticated hardware and software solutions that turns common flat surfaces into collaborative virtual workspaces (think tablet experience on existing large surfaces such as walls, whiteboards, tables…), bringing the physical content into the digital through seamless capture, manipulation and collaboration of content and activities.
GM North America & VP Business Development
2008 - 2009
Leader in mobile content management solutions. Leads the company's global sales, corporate and business development activities including strategy, partner relationships, OEM & channel sales, handset vendors pre-load deals, and worldwide carrier deals, as well as the overall activities in North America.
Venture Partner
2006 - 2008
Following my 7 years as a full time venture capitalist, remained an advisor to the Fund, including serving as a board member in portfolio companies. Last one was Octalica until it was acquired by Broadcom (NASDAQ: BRCM) in 2007.
Principal
1999 - 2006
Cedar Fund, a $325 million early stage Israel-related venture capital firm. Investment professional - responsible for locating investment opportunities, leading multi-million dollar deals and working closely with portfolio companies as a board member. Overall completed numerous initial and follow-on investments in various industries including Internet, mobile, telecommunications, enterprise software and home-networking. During this time, I co-founded and was a Principal and Board member of the Young Venture Capital Forum (YVCF), an active non-profit organization that was founded in 2001, catering professionals within top investment firms in the Israeli arena. Later merged with the IVA (Israel Venture Association).
VP of Business Development
2006 - 2008
A Vinod Khosla and Charles River Ventures backed company. Started with the company in its very early days. Instrumental in guiding overall company and product strategy and directly responsible for worldwide sales and business development activities. We became the solution provider behind the official mobile Skype product at the time, as well as the technology behind their first cellular based mobile SkypePhone which was developed and launched together with partners including Qualcomm (which ended up acquiring the company), Skype and Hutchinson/3G. Other customers and partners include handset vendors and other OEM players, global mobile carriers and service providers and Internet companies.
Education
Investments
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