Israeli startups a fertile ground for Asian investment: Avi Winter

Avi Winter, the founder and CEO of GDI Israel, has the singular ambition of bridging the Israeli startup ecosystem with the ecosystems of Singapore and the wider ASEAN community. A former data operations manager at Morningstar, he progressed to a business development role at 3H Global, a consultancy dealing with high-level government relations in Israel. Since the end of 2014, Winter has moved into the realm of management consulting and curating dealflow for investors, helping venture firms enter and negotiate the complex realities of Israel’s business ecosystem and nuanced culture. Winter attributes Israel’s youthful optimism, that brings with it the attitude that anything is possible, and its beliefs that systems and conventions can be challenged, in addition to its difficult relations with its neighbors, to be the key reasons behind the country producing more start-up companies than large, peaceful, and stable nations. Edited Excerpts.