[ 00:00:00 ] So vehicles are becoming like our smartphones. If you’re going to the forest extreme, then you can also take over a vehicle. What were they thinking? The stories behind Europe’s most promising clean mobility startups. Hello, my name is Dan Sobovitz, and in this new podcast, I’ll be talking to some very successful startup entrepreneurs, women and men who are disrupting mobility as we know it. They’re making it more sustainable and more inclusive, both for their passengers and for their employees. In this podcast, I won’t be asking them about their pitch decks or their growth rates or their shareholder models. I’m much more interested in what were they thinking. How did it feel to go the lonely road of an entrepreneur? Did people follow them easily or did they think they were crazy?

 

[ 00:00:43 ] Was it fun all along or mostly frustrating? And deep down, did they really believe they were going to make it this far? In this episode, I have with me in the studio, Dvir Reznik. Hi, Dvir. Hey, Dan. Thanks for having me. Dvir is VP Marketing at C2A Security, a company that streamlines cybersecurity in the automotive industry. Before we start, because you come from Israel, we’ll do the Friday dinner question. You’re dating a new woman or man, you go for a Friday dinner with them, and you’re being asked, so what do you do in life? So explain to me, as if we’re just having casual Friday dinner conversation, what is it that your company does? So first of all, thanks again for having us and inviting us to pitch here for Slush.

 

[ 00:01:22 ] It’s a really great honor. This is something that I try as a marketeer. This is something that I, try very often to do. Like when you come to a new company, how do you tell its story in a most simple way, breaking down the tech into the basic forms of it? So what I usually say about automotive cybersecurity is that if you see all the Hollywood style, all the Hollywood movies like Fast and Furious and stuff, this is the movies. But in the real life, what matters most is around safety and data privacy. So basically what C2A Security is doing is working with car companies, so the Ford, GMs, Daimler, BMWs of the world, to help them develop software that’s compliant with regulation and secure.

 

[ 00:02:07 ] So it protects, first of all, the passengers and the drivers within the car, but also the large ecosystem around it. I think I approve now the new date of the daughter of the family. So he seems to, I didn’t follow everything, but he seems to be doing something so important that it definitely sounds worthwhile. So, it’s basically the data, the data that the car is emitting, that you want to make sure that it doesn’t get hacked. So, yeah, so eventually, I think you look at it from how do we protect the vehicle? If you look at the cars of 10, 15 years ago, they weren’t connected to anything. They were just driving around on the road. But as more and more software gets into the vehicle with sophisticated infotainment systems, with electric vehicles now, with over-the-air software updates.

 

[ 00:02:53 ] So, vehicles are becoming like our smartphones. Where you can get different apps, for example, we can download different programs and software that you can use. And the risk is mainly intentions. So the risk is from several directions. It can be either someone trying to just hack and steal your personal information, finance, location data, navigation history, like the basic personal information stuff that you can do. If you’re going to take it to an extreme, then you can also take over a vehicle, for example, an autonomous car or a semi-autonomous car, because we don’t have autonomous yet. I think the scale of what’s possible in terms of automotive cybersecurity and how potential intruders can look at it is very wide. But eventually, if you’re looking at the day-to-day, it’s much more around how do I keep the data secure?

 

[ 00:03:46 ] How do I make sure that the software that I have in the vehicle is doing exactly what it should do? Like that, if you’re developing, for example, you want to have Spotify or Netflix on the infotainment system when you’re in the car. So, for example, how do you manage permissions? How do you make sure that the one who is signing up to Spotify in the car is not exploiting that specific app to get access to your gearbox or to your acceleration pedal or to another system that’s in the car? To go from the technology back to, to you. So in the previous episodes of this podcast, I spoke with founders of some other successful startups. First of all, I had discussed the topic of entrepreneurship with my wife, and she’s always been like very, very encouraging.

 

[ 00:04:39 ] I didn’t really see anything happening on the sustainability side of consumption. And what I find makes you different is that you did not leave a comfortable life behind to join a shaky startup. You’re attracted to startups, and that’s what you’ve been doing for most of your career. So, tell me about the thrill you get. Working in the startup environment, which is perhaps offering less security, more demanding hours, but it still seems to captivate you. Yeah, well, that’s a that’s a great angle. I think I’ve been doing marketing for 20 something years now. I actually started off at IBM, like right out of the army, which is something that I thought, OK, I’m going to be here for like two or three years, do my B.A., and then go out and do something else.

 

[ 00:05:26 ] I think it’s very difficult to escape that startup mentality and the startup nation. So I stepped outside and joined a small startup called Donavo, which was back then six people. I was the first one that didn’t know how to code. Well, HTML coding for the first time. The Web doesn’t you code now? No, not yet. Still HTML and some basic stuff on the Web site. How many years ago are we talking about? That was 2010, 2011. OK, so the economy is going fairly OK. It’s not a big crisis. It was after the big U.S.

 

[ 00:06:14 ] crisis with subprime. Oh, that’s true. No, no, no. It’s actually right in the in the in the crisis. It’s 2008 is that is the crisis. So 2008, I left IBM around 2009, 2010. But but I think. In Israel, it was less of an impact, but still like the startup mentality and all the vibes and all the networking that you have specifically for companies and entrepreneurs growing out of the army and looking for what to do. So, what attracted me is the ability to do basically everything – anything that’s not hard coding is basically your domain, and you get to build something from scratch. Like you get to decide what’s what is their storytelling, what are their key messages, who are your customers, you work and deal with the customers, you do customer support, emails, marketing strategy, handling budget.

 

[ 00:07:10 ] So, the diversity of tasks is something that you appreciate in a small company more than in a big corporation like IBM. Yeah. To me, at least, I think it’s something that really appeals because I’m really a hands-on type of guy. I mean, all the all the fancy titles, VP, CMO, like it’s not. At a startup company, it’s like all hands on deck, something like that. So, something that surprised me in the startup nation, because full disclaimer, I’m also born and raised in Israel, is that in the past few decades, startups have become kind of the symbol of success. If in the previous generation, the typical Jewish mother wanted her son or daughter to become a lawyer or a doctor today, it’s having a successful startup, doing your exit.

 

[ 00:07:49 ] And I had the impression that this was a universal thing. I didn’t realize it was particular to Israel when I lived in Berlin. I had the impression that most people. I don’t know if it’s cultural or it’s because it’s a different startup scene, but for engineers, they much prefer to work for the big corporations and in the startups, they were not necessarily compensated for the risk in terms of salary. It was considered much less stable, much more work and not that glamorous. So there’s something about maybe the Israeli culture that I mean, you’ve been doing it for many years. And the previous entrepreneurs that I interviewed, I asked about the risk. And for some of them, it was more of an issue than for others.

 

[ 00:08:22 ] But for most of them, they did leave a comfortable job behind and it was a major transition. They had to decide whether they were willing and able and had the privilege and the luxury of taking that risk. Whereas in Israel, it feels to me like it’s almost an obvious, it’s a no-brainer. Like, why wouldn’t you? Well, obviously, I think it’s a cultural thing because it very much differs between countries. To me, I was also a freelancer. So, between after NAVO, I was there for like a year and a half, which is working for a startup. If you compare it to like corporate life, I always like to call it. It’s like dog years, like one year at a startup is multiplied by seven. Yeah. For for a corporate life. Why?

 

[ 00:09:01 ] Actually, because it’s more intense. Yeah, it’s much more intense. It’s not like you’re not at corporates or like nine to five, but that’s at least the mentality. So how old are you now? You’re like in your 80s in startup years. Something like that. You’re like well after retirement. Yeah, I should be. But I was also a freelancer. So after NAVO, I stepped out and I was CMO for hire. I worked for a lot of startup companies. We’re growing out and being at that phase where they understand they need marketing, and they need someone who is hands-on and is doing who understands what he’s doing. But they’re not at a stage where they need someone full-time. So I was a freelancer for four years.

 

[ 00:09:39 ] But then again, from I think, well, we grew up; my wife and I started raising a family. So, and my wife is also a freelancer. She’s a clinical psychologist. So, we said, ‘Well, we need at least one – a freelancer with less insecurity,’ I would say, as a clinical psychologist. Yeah. So she had the stability. It really takes time. Well, for especially clinical psychologists, because the education process is very long and she did PhD. So by the time she needed to build up a private practice, we said, well, it’s good for one of us to have more stable salary. So I moved back to a startup life after being a freelancer for like four years. And I joined a cybersecurity startup, TowerSack, back in the day, which was just acquired by Harman, which is again from the automotive industry.

 

[ 00:10:30 ] And Harman  is a corporate, but we still had that startup vibe because we’re just acquired. So we have that honeymoon period. I think that every every startup has that when they’re just acquired. And then I moved up the ladder in Harman. But going back, I think, to our question, it’s it’s really a cultural thing. If you’re going from either working for a startup or being at corporate, I think that it’s also related. It relates a lot to sort of what what you saw your parents are doing to some extent. What did your parents do? So my father actually worked at IBM for like his entire career. Your first job was following your dad’s footsteps. Yeah, he got me into IBM. So like on a temp position, he was still working there.

 

[ 00:11:11 ] Yeah, I was still working there. Yeah. So, no rebellion in your family. You really followed your dad. You’re a colleague of your dad. He was moving out from IBM. He joined another company. But yeah, he was at IBM. Now I have to ask: What did he think when you left IBM for a startup? Oh, he was very supportive. Yeah. Yeah. He also left and he moved up to being something, becoming the general manager of a different company. I was afraid you’d say that you hired him for your startup. No, not yet. And your mom… And my mom is a lawyer. She worked for many years at the hospital in Israel. So I think it’s very much also relating to what your parents are doing, because back in the day, it was a natural course of progress to sort of follow.

 

[ 00:11:53 ] You join a company and you stay there through a pension. And I think when you’re living in cities or countries that have more diversity, especially in Israel, because of the army and because the startup nation. So it’s not unusual. Even now, when I interview people to join either C2A security or join my previous companies, you see much more movement. Yeah, but for me, that’s more of a generational thing. As you said, our parents were much more sensitive to stability as millennials are. Yeah, but, but, you still have the safer, more stable jobs in corporates than in startups, where, you know, the statistics are against you when you join a startup. Most chances that they will run out of money at some point. True.

 

[ 00:12:32 ] And I think that this is something maybe that is perhaps less being addressed in the media and in general, because as an entrepreneur, especially someone who wants to join a company when you’re fresh out of college, you hear a lot about all the exits and all successes, all the companies raising money. But. But, you hear less about the failures. So the companies that didn’t make it, the companies that closed. And that’s that’s tough. That’s difficult. But I think you’re always learning something, always gaining something for yourself, even if your your company closes or you had to close it. So I think in everything you do, you have sort of like a pay-it-forward type of thing. Even even when I joined TowerSec, it was because of the former customers of mine.

 

[ 00:13:20 ] So when I was freelancing, I did a project for for a very cool startup called the Serendip, which was co-founded by two two folks, Sagi and Asaf. And unfortunately, their startup closed, like, a year after something like that. And they each took to their own path. Two years later, Asaf was working at TowerSec, and he brought me in. So it’s sort of like this circle of motion. It’s a small bubble that you keep running into the same people. Yeah, that’s also, I think, very unique to Israel, as you know. But I think also the this networking effect is very strong. This is in part why, for example, for us, for marketers, I’m part of the this forum called GCMO, which is a global forum of Israeli CMOs working for global companies.

 

[ 00:14:08 ] And I think that’s very unique to the ecosystem. That’s not something that you would see in other countries. I’ll be happy to stand corrected. But I think the Israeli vibe – the Israeli vibe of sort of being a close community and sharing from experience. It’s very impressive, like with as you can always say, you have the six degrees of separation. So usually within our forum, someone says, ‘Well, I need anyone knows the CEO of, I don’t know, Stripe or Spotify or whoever has a connection to the CMO of name a company.’ So like with two clicks, two connections, you usually get someone to send you their details. I should keep in touch with you. You never know who you need.

 

[ 00:14:50 ] By the way, your career path for somebody who does want to end up in a startup, either founding one or joining one? Do you think that your experience in a big corporation after your studies was the right school? So, if students are listening to this and wondering, do I need to go through the corporate school before I join a startup? Do you think that was necessarily useful? I don’t know. I think that it really to me; I can say what draws me like to me: I need to feel passion. I need to feel passionate. Yeah. I’m passionate about the company that I’m working at, the product that I’m selling. What creates the passion for you? It could be a combination of things – you need to work for a product that you see people are using.

 

[ 00:15:29 ] So this is something that really attracted me to working right now at C2A Security. By definition, a product needs to be used in order to succeed, no? Yeah. But it’s not just like a matter of saying, well, I have customers, but you want them to use the product; you want them to use it for a long-term basis, and you want them to send you feedback so that they’re engaged. Mm-hmm. So, you have this customer-obsessed mindset within the company. And I think that also, when you’re looking at education, it’s not only about sort of the academic courses that you take, but also the network that you build around you – whether from the army in Israel or from school or from the university – and it can be hands-on experience.

 

[ 00:16:11 ] If I can paraphrase, you’re saying that before you start or join a startup, it’s important to have a good network, whether it comes from your military service, from your studies or from corporation, and it doesn’t really matter, but make sure that you know the right people, because you will need that network. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So, your startup is also particular in the sense that it’s been there for a fairly long time, six years, and I hear that most of your team has been there from the start. So, I’ll try to avoid clichés, but what do you think is actually the glue that’s keeping together your team through these different turbulent times? Because you spoke about the new generation, people do jump around between jobs, but you seem to stick together.

 

[ 00:16:48 ] Yeah, definitely. I think that’s also a great question. I think that for us, we’re a startup based in Jerusalem, and I think for the Israeli startup scene, that was unusual back in the day when we just started. The founder, Michael Dick, he was the co-founder of NDS, which was later sold to Cisco, and he was doing cybersecurity at NDS and then later on at Cisco. And what really attracted him was the fact that he wanted to keep the talent in Jerusalem. I think that’s very important. Why? Because we wanted to have more people joining this high-tech club, I would say. It creates opportunities; it breaks down barriers, especially I think, in. But why Jerusalem? Why not do it in Tel Aviv where most of the startups are?

 

[ 00:17:35 ] Exactly, because most of the startups are there. So, by definition, you’re sort of, first of all, closing up more opportunities because it’s in a specific area. I like Tel Aviv, but I think that now, in Israel, for well, not now, for the past five or six years, you’re seeing that the high-tech scene is expanding. It’s not only Tel Aviv; it’s in Haifa, in the north, it’s in Jerusalem, it’s in Be’er Sheva, in the south. It’s really spreading out, and that I think is key because that means you can bring more people in to that high-tech system. So you’re talking about social inclusion and impact? Yeah, definitely. But it’s true that we met through the European Startup Prize, which is impact-driven, politically driven, in order to create impact mostly on environment, climate action, and inclusion.

 

[ 00:18:28 ] So when you speak about indeed the passion you have for the product, where does impact come into that? To me, I think what also attracted me is the fact that we have a very diverse company. So we have secular Jews, we have Hasidic Jews, we have a Satmar Jew who is a developer at the company. Non-Jews? No, none that I recall. It’s still Jerusalem, no? Yeah, it is. But I mean, to me, like at first, and I totally agree that that’s another barrier that we need to break down, and I think that especially in Jerusalem, you have JVP, you have other organizations, you have Made in Jerusalem, there are a lot of other organizations that are really bringing down all the different communities and religions. Mm-hmm. That you have into the cycle.

 

[ 00:19:19 ] But for us, and for me especially, I think that that diversity is really what attracted me because you often see that those communities are often excluded from high-tech, from startup scene. Make tech, not war. Maybe tech will finally help us come together. Maybe. Bring them back. Partners. Thank you. The 700 startups who applied for this. Are you ready? From all across Europe. Absolutely. And of course, our partners. This is our media partner. At this point, I should mention that startups participating in this podcast are those who won this year’s edition of the European Startup Prize for Mobility, which is Europe’s largest acceleration program for clean mobility startups. The Startup Prize is a private public initiative bringing together all major EU institutions, national authorities, philanthropies, and multinational companies who jointly scout, rank, and boost Europe’s most promising clean mobility startups.

 

[ 00:20:09 ] This year, the prize received over 700 applications from mobility startups all across Europe and Israel, as we can see. We went together through a rigorous selection process, both written and in front of a professional jury. The prize eventually connects its winners with partners for investment and partnerships, presents them to VCs and CVCs, and provides them with visibility across Europe. We’re actually recording this episode in Helsinki as part of the winner’s tour, which brought us to Slush. To learn more about all the startups who won this year, visit startupprize.eu. Thank you, Dan, and thank you, Mario. Thank you for all the team from the European Parliament. And thank you for the team, the production team. Who else do we need to thank? The Brussels Times, you said.

 

[ 00:20:50 ] Before we conclude, we’re recording this conversation on December 1st, 2023. My daughter’s birthday; Your daughter’s birthday. Mazel tov. Mazel tov, Niv. What’s perhaps interesting about Israeli tech is that its success is largely thanks to the Israeli security establishment and military, which is a great school for many Israeli entrepreneurs. But now Israel is in a state of war, and I’m wondering what’s happening in the tech scene right now. What’s happening to C2A? Do you have many people who are drafted? So, is it that the same school that has prepared many successful Israeli entrepreneurs is now calling them back to serve when Israel is at war, and now companies are struggling to function? So, yeah, so this is a really, I would say, difficult situation.

 

[ 00:21:34 ] I think being in Israel and operating in Israel – on the one hand, you want to stay supportive of the team and their families. We have some team members who were drafted. And they’re away. For how long? For, well, since the beginning, like since October 7. That’s now almost two months. Yeah. Almost two months that you haven’t seen your employees? No, not, I think it was… how many we have? Two or three. So it’s not that many. But still, the fact that you have either them on army reserve or their spouses being either doctors or nurses at hospital doing double shifts. So that also causes an impact. So even doctors are now serving more time? Yeah, because if you are not drafted, so those who are drafted, you still need to fill out so you’re doing double shifts at hospital and stuff like that.

 

[ 00:22:26 ] But yeah, so on the one hand, it’s how we support the team, how we support our team and their families, because these are tiring times. At the beginning, when it just started, like for a few weeks, you didn’t have any schools, for example. And you had some very difficult scenes coming out. So you also need to be respective of that and understand how do you continue to work. But on the same time, we work at a global company in the global landscape. So our customers, partners, we have ongoing commitments; we have POCs. Are they understanding? Do I find myself saying, ‘Sorry, we’re in a state of war; we cannot respect the deadline?’ No, no, certainly. We received a lot of supportive messages from our customers. Supporting what it is that Israel is doing.

 

[ 00:23:15 ] Our right to bring everyone back home safely. But at the same time, we have commitments; we have commercial engagements. We need to continue delivering. And this is in part what we’ve been focusing on. So, looking at how you balance these two things. And at the same time, we’re seeing a lot of our employees that we encourage also to volunteer on various fields. Donating food, blankets, supplies to families who were uprooted from the North or from the South. But how long can you continue doing business like this? Well, for now, I think we’ve been fine. Three, four people were drafted out of how many? We’re 40 people in the company. Maybe it pays off to take Hasidic Jews who don’t serve in the military, they don’t get drafted. Well, that’s in a sense, yeah.

 

[ 00:24:05 ] But I mean, we have sufficient people who are doing, giving out their part. But I think that because we had, well, luckily, I would say we had COVID. So we know how to, first of all, work remotely because we’ve been less to the office, even though we just moved to new offices. Yeah, but that’s when you’re drafted. Yeah, still. But if people cannot come because, for example, during COVID, they were down sick, so they needed to be quarantined for a week or two weeks. So we know how to balance things off. Plus, we’ve been on a hiring spree. So that, in a sense, sort of helps to offset a bit those who are drafted. And hopefully, I mean, we’ll prevail. We’ll return to some form of normal.

 

[ 00:24:48 ] I don’t think that this war-life balance is what it should be. Yeah, it’s what it should be. And it’s very difficult, on a daily basis, to see some of the images that we’re seeing out of the south. And really hoping for the safe return of everyone. That was taken. But I think that for us, it’s basically about delivering. We have commitments to customers. We know that we continue to deliver no matter what. But other companies in the industry, do you hear about, is there a downturn because of the war or not necessarily? No, no, I don’t think. I don’t think that even companies in our domain, whether it’s automotive, cybersecurity, or I think the entire high-tech scene. And I mentioned before the GCMO and other organizations.

 

[ 00:25:35 ] So we, for example, took our skills, the CMO forum, to the test, and really, sort of, very much engaged in seeing how you can help Israel get out of this position. And how do you help with everything that has to do with the position that Israeli state is now. And really, I would say, also strengthening the fact that it’s the economy, it’s the high-tech scene; it’s the business aspect that really keeps this country moving and staying innovative at all times. So, I’m optimistic. I think that we have a lot of things going for us, especially at C2A security. We have a very clear vision and pipeline into what it is that we want to achieve with our customers. And we’re very close to getting there.

[ 00:26:28 ] And then again, thanks to the European sort of price for mobility, I think that for us, it really gave us more credibility and really sort of this testament that this is a proven technology. It’s a proven company that is making strides in the industry. So, on that positive note, because I could continue this conversation with you for hours, and actually intend to continue this conversation with you for hours, but outside the studio, because we will have to finish this episode. This was Dvir Reznik. In the next episode, we’ll move from Israel to Germany. And I’ll talk with Alexander Sohl, founder and CEO of MeEnergy, which offers off-grid fast charging stations. As a service to learn more about any of these startups, once again, visit startupprize.eu. This was what were they thinking? The stories behind Europe’s most promising clean mobility startups brought to you by the European Startup Prize for Mobility. You can find all episodes on your favorite podcast platform. I’m Dan Sobovitz. Stay connected – but also secure. See you next time.