Gil is passionate about helping Israeli entrepreneurs that build their startups in Israel and Silicon Valley, offering advice and sometimes a spot on his living room couch.
In 2005, he joined Yahoo!’s Corporate Development group, working on strategy & acquisitions, as well as managing the relationships with the Israeli ecosystem of investors, entrepreneurs and startups. In this role, he led the acquisition of Yahoo!’s first Israel-based startup (FoxyTunes) and helped open the company’s first R&D center in Haifa. Gil then transitioned to the role of VP of Operations Management, driving the business aspects for the tech infrastructure organization.
He left Yahoo! during the summer of 2011 to dedicate his time to his new venture, UpWest Labs, a Palo Alto-based accelerator program that has invested in close to 50 Israeli startups. To date, UpWest Labs graduates have raised more than $50M in funding with an average seed round of over $1M per company; Over 70% of the startups have raised follow-on funding, with a few of them acquired by the likes of Google, Priceline and Gartner.
Gil was previously a consultant with the Boston Consulting Group in New York, where he advised Fortune 500 companies. He completed his BA in Economics & Business Administration at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and his MBA at The Wharton School in the University of Pennsylvania.
