First Tuesday, the global marketplace for entrepreneurs, and Yazam, an international seed-stage investing and business development company headed by Shlomo Kalish, announced today that they have merged. Yazam paid $50 million for the acquisition.
First Tuesday will maintain its brand and will operate as wholly-owned subsidiary of Yazam, managed by First Tuesday CEO Reade Fahs.
Yazam's expertise in evaluating, investing and building early stage Internet companies worldwide will be complemented by First Tuesday's community, global network and marketplace.
Based in Jerusalem, with offices in London, New York, San Francisco, Washington and Tokyo, Yazam invests in seed-stage companies, in addition to providing business development services to its portfolio companies.
Yazam complements First Tuesday's existing matchmaking service by offering extensive research on potential investment opportunities and appropriately shares its due diligence with leading venture capital firms so that they may co-invest in new ventures.
Yazam recently raised $60 million to fund its international expansion. Investors included JP Morgan, Merrill Lynch, Texas Pacific Group, Carlyle Internet Partners Europe, and Charles Schwab, who made a personal investment.
Yazam has a unique business plan evaluation process that leverages its network of global research analysts to provide speedy and accurate analysis of business opportunities.
From London, First Tuesday manages a network of entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and investors spread over 85 cities in over 40 countries. More than 25,000 attend First Tuesday events, held on the first Tuesday of each month.
Its London jobs forum alone has 1,400 postings a month, introducing start-ups to the scarcest of resources in the new economy - talent. Each month, its matchmaking events introduce carefully selected entrepreneurs to venture capitalists whose interests match their offerings.
Published by Israel's Business Arena on 24 July, 2000