East Wind Advisors

In Issue 5 of the East Wind Current - 'The Spring of Hope, or the Winter of Despair?', we speak with visionary entrepreneur and investor Shlomo Dovrat, the co-founder of Viola Ventures, Israel’s leading tech investment group. We feature two new promotions to the East Wind Advisors' Team, as we continue to develop the highest quality talent to better service our clients’ needs. East Wind’s David Kaufthal and Jason Birke return in this edition to discuss how professional service firms have been leveraging AI to create additional value for their clients. The Market Roundup section highlights 2H24 public market performance and notable transactions for our coverage areas. Finally, we interviewed our own Associate Chelsea Chen , who shares valuable insights on her investment banking career and East Wind’s culture. #InvestmentBanking #Education #EdTech #Consumer #Media #MarketRoundup #Israel #StartupNation #VC #Technology #AI #Mergers #Acquisitions #Financings #VentureCapital #PrivateEquity #ProfessionalServices Find the bulletin here: https://lnkd.in/eGTrJ4au

We are pleased to announce the well-deserved promotions of Christopher Guerrieri to Vice President and Michael Rautter to Associate. Congratulations Chris and Mike!

East Wind Advisors is pleased to announce it advised Abl, a portfolio company of Owl Ventures and Rethink Education, on its sale to BetterLesson. This transaction will help all K-12 educators – from classroom teacher to superintendent – meaningfully improve the quality of teaching and learning.? Congrats to Howard Bell, III, Briana Krompier, Charnette M., Matthew Kennard, Adam Hogue and their investors Adam Pisoni, Andre Bennin, Tory Patterson and Lyman Missimer and to our own Micha?l Bijaoui, Natalie Bader and Michael Rautter for helping to make it happen. #edtech #k12 #Mergersandacquisitions

East Wind Advisors was proud to co-organize EdTech Prime Time at the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange - ?????? ??????? ??? on November 6, the 3rd day of Israel EdTech Week 2024. This event showcased the burgeoning talent in Israel's EdTech ecosystem, addressed the provocative theme of "uncertainty" and featured an inspiring roster of speakers, including Marc Sternberg Sarah Rose Siskind Michael Eisenberg Shahar Botzer Hilla Ovil-Brenner Alon Stopel Tomer Simon, PhD Ami Moyal Eli Hurvitz Pierre-Antoine Ullmo Noga Gil Bassi Tomer Haims and our own Joshua Schwartz. We are grateful for our partnership with The Center for Educational Technology (CET) and MindCET- EdTech Innovation Center, led by Yossi Baidatz and Avi warshavsky and admire the hard work of Lea Cecilia Waismann, Ph.D. Dana M. Talia Kolodny and Ilan Ben Yaakov, among many others. Finally, thanks to The Paul E. Singer Foundation and The Kadar Foundation for your generous support.

In Issue 4 of East Wind Advisors' The Current, we sat down with founder Derek Belch, who is leading a (to date) quiet revolution in workforce development through his enterprise-focused extended reality (XR) company, STRIVR. Workforce Development is a high priority for our franchise, so we relished the opportunity to hear from one of the true innovators in this area. We share Derek’s view that it is just a matter of time before XR becomes ubiquitous across corporate enterprises and other organizations. Please have a look and comment freely. #workforcedevelopment #extendedreality #XR #VR #AR #AI https://lnkd.in/excdUv7s

East Wind Advisors presents results from our capital markets sentiment survey conducted within our network of investors and lenders. The survey suggests that sentiment skews positive for the next six months. In addition, we highlight 1H24 public market performance and key transactions in our primary coverage areas. In the public market, standouts include companies operating in postsecondary education and value/mass retail, while underperformers of note included workforce & lifelong learning, marketing information, broadcasting & filmed entertainment, digital audio & video and leisure products. As for deal activity, transaction volume has picked up from 2023 levels, a trend which, from our vantage point, we expect to accelerate in the back half of the year and into 2025 (with some caveats noted in The Current). https://lnkd.in/eCs7X-R6 #capitalmarkets #mergersandacquisitions #edtech #mediaandentertainment #consumer

In Issue 4 of the East Wind Current - 'For Whom the Pendulum Swings', we speak with Derek Belch, who is leading a (to date) quiet revolution in workforce development through his enterprise-focused extended reality (XR) company, STRIVR. We feature four new additions to the East Wind Advisors' Team, as we continue to add the highest quality talent to better service our clients’ needs. East Wind’s David Kaufthal and Jason Birke return in this edition to discuss how professional service firms should be thinking about competitive advantage. Once again, we share the results of our Market Survey that show the sentiment on the market environment collected from our network of investors. We interviewed our own Partner Peter Rothschild, who shares valuable insights on the investment banking industry after 40+ years of experience. Finally, the Market Roundup section highlights 1H24 public market performance and notable transactions for our coverage areas. #investmentbanking #extendedreality #xr #ar #vr #workforcetraining #mediaandentertainment #edtech #education #consumer #retail #mergersandacquisitions #professionalservices Find the bulletin here: https://lnkd.in/eJcg8yJW

East Wind is collaborating with Jamie Gutfreund and Creator Vision on a survey of Creator Economy measurement tools.?DM us if you'd like to participate. #digitalmarketing #creatoreconomy #marketing #ifnluencermarketing #socialmedia #future

Fun one to be a part of! Thank you Gemma Lenowitz and Anna Bao (!) for hosting a great event and inviting me to frame the landscape and tease a few questions about the workforce of tomorrow. ?? TLDR: skills development must keep up with the pace of tech advancements. Technological literacy is one side of the coin… self-efficacy and social influence skills are vital to be able to respond quickly to change and automation. What are the best models to scale skills training for the workforce of the future? How will data be used to inform personalized training pathways? ?? All to help set the stage for a panel of speakers who are leading organizations that are building much needed pathways and advancing innovation Andrew Tein from Coursera | Eleazar Adjehoun ?? from The Knowledge House | Pierre Dubuc from OpenClassrooms | Jukay Hsu from Pursuit Future of Higher Ed | Samvid Ventures | East Wind Advisors

We are delighted to welcome Richard Duron?to East Wind Advisors. Richard joins our firm as Senior Managing Director from Atlas Advisors, where he spent the last nine years advising on an array of transactions in the consumer and basic industries sectors. Earlier in his career, Richard spent seven years at UBS, where his last position was Vice Chairman in the Wealth Management International Americas division. He also ran UBS's Wealth Management operations in?Canada?and?Latin America. Prior to UBS, Richard spent 24 years at JPMorgan in various functions and headed the M&A group for?Latin America. At East Wind, Richard will build on his relationships with clients in various industries with a primary focus on the consumer sector. Press release can be found here: https://bit.ly/4dawyBa