/// ZELL ENTREPRENEURSHIP PROGRAM

Since its founding by businessman and philanthropist Sam Zell over two decades ago, the Zell Entrepreneurship Program has evolved into an acclaimed venture creation program. Designed for students from all faculties, the program is aimed at outstanding final-year undergraduates who aspire to work in entrepreneurial organizations or launch their own startups. In the spirit of Reichman University, the program combines multidisciplinary approaches and embodies a “learning by doing” ethos, enabling students to learn and develop skills as they work on creating their own startups. The current Zell 22 class is equally divided between women and men, from a wide range of faculties. They are working on startups in a diverse variety of fields, including data engineering, asset management, social sentiment, enterprise software and developer tools.

Zell Entrepreneurship Program Statistics:

· 433 alumni

· 165 startups founded

· 80 companies active

· 30 companies sold or merged

· $3.8 billion raised

· 6,480 jobs created

Following a two-year break due to the pandemic, the latest class to graduate from the Zell Entrepreneurship Program flew to the United States at the end of the academic year, after completing their intensive year-long program. The 19 students of Zell 21 visited Chicago and New York, and were able to present their ventures several times, including to program founder Sam Zell and the Equity Group management team. Four ventures continued after the program, all of which received early funding, and three were accepted to US-based accelerators –one to Y Combinator and two to Techstars.

During the 2021-2022 academic year, three alumni ventures were funded by the ZEP Fund: the first is Sherloq, which empowers data teams to work and communicate better together, so they are fully synchronized and can truly trust their data; next is Boost, which enables millions of eCommerce SMBs to scale through data-driven business analyses and access growth opportunities; and finally AudioLabs, which enables content marketing teams to drive new listeners by publishing interactive short-form videos on TikTok, YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels. In total, the ZEP Fund has funded 41 ventures in industries ranging from tourism to finance.

The ZEP Fund also notched up its second “exit” in 2022. Rewire, a multinational fintech company that provides online financial services tailored for migrant foreign workers worldwide, was founded by Zell 11 graduates Guy Kashthan and Or Benoz, and received funding from the ZEP Fund. It was acquired by the US-based Remitly (Nasdaq: RELY), an online remittance service that offers international money transfers to over 130 countries.