The entire interview with Xenia’s Anat Segal is part of our new subscription newsletter, Israel Opportunity Investor. You can find out more about the product and the opportunities we cover at www.israelnewsletter.com.

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Please tell us about Xenia?
Anat Segal, CEO: Xenia is an investment firm founded in mid-2003 by a group of entrepreneurs with the vision of being an incubation powerhouse, engaged in the initiation and building of successful high-tech companies in the areas of IT and medical devices. I would say that there are two main similarities we share with traditional Venture Capital (VC) firms.  We invest in startups in return for equity, and the terms of our deals are similar.

What are the differences?
AS: One of the differences is that our investments are in really, really early stage companies. What are   typically referred to as seed and pre-seed stage deals. We establish the company alongside the entrepreneur. Our money is typically the first money in the firm. Sometimes there is friend-and-family round.  We are first and foremost an investment firm. We base ourselves on the unique structure of the Israeli incubator model. (Continue »)

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Has the massive shekel run finally come to an end?  Deutsche Bank thinks so.  Globes reports today that DB analysts think that the recently-announced 4-fold increase of dollar purchases (up to $100 million/day) by the Bank of Israel may be the proverbial top for the Israeli shekel, which has enjoyed a huge run against most of the world’s top currencies over the past couple of years.  We’ve written voluminously on the shekel’s rise that’s even prompted certain Israeli hi-tech firms to offshore engineering work to the U.S. Globes also recently reported that wages of senior Israeli high tech managers are beginning to come under pressure.

With gas station managers in the U.S. rumaging through storage units due to a shortage of ‘4’s’ to display on their pumps, I wonder if Israeli gas station managers are having the same problem with ‘8’s’?  Brutal.

The large multinational tech firms (and now consumer products firms) continue to use Israel as a R&D hub.  Interesting historical view/story of Sun Microsystems Israel here.  It’s part of a larger series done by Ayelet Noff on Israeli High Tech. Om Malik also shared his thoughts on a recent trip to Israel for the Israel 2008 conference here. VC Cafe’s Eze Vidra has a good article about Israeli firms receiving funding but fighting for survival here.

Tel Aviv Stock Exchange mulls change in market hours here.

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The entire interview with Dave Fry of ETF Digest part of our new subscription newsletter, Israel Opportunity Investor. You can find out more about the product and the opportunities we cover at www.israelnewsletter.com.

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How did you become a leading analyst on ETFs?
Dave Fry, Founder of ETF Digest: I think being early in coverage of these fast growing investment vehicles is the easy answer.  Beyond that we have tried to be more honest and blunt in our coverage of new products.  We haven’t been “yes men” or suck ups for issuers and sponsors for example.  Where we’ve been critical some ETF sponsors won’t talk to us any more for example which isn’t a bother since we don’t use their products anyway.  Further where there are problems we’ve been out front in pointing these out.  That occurred with shorting problems for retail investors where the promised benefit didn’t meet reality. (Continue »)

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U.S. investors have tried for the past few years to access the growth in the Israeli market without a true index vehicle for doing so. The Amidex35 is probably the most accurate vehicle for those looking to get exposure to Israel as a whole. It’s an interesting index, splitting total market cap between Tel Aviv and the U.S (around 60/40). So, you get local Israel exposure with some growth-y tech companies layered in. Kudos to Amidex’s Cliff Goldstein who shared some time with us on CNBC recently talking about Israeli companies and the market opportunity as a whole. We interviewed Cliff a couple of months ago and it’s worth reading that interview again here. (Continue »)

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