With 2008 coming to a close, we’re getting very excited at the prospects of the New Year and even more excited that the first stop on our Mini Seedcamp tour de force next year will see us tapping into the web-tech talents of Israel…and happy that that we might grab some winter sunshine to boot!

Mini Seedcamp Tel Aviv will bring together 20 of Israel’s best early stage web tech start-ups with over 50 industry leading and highly experienced entrepreneurs, investors and developers from the region and across Europe to participate in a day of mentoring, panel discussions and presentations.

Participants include Saul Klein of Seedcamp, Yaron Orenstein of the.co.ils and Tovi Riegler of SAP Labs to name but a few. From product designers to venture capitalists and marketing specialists, they will share their knowledge and experience to help the selected teams put together the foundations of a viable business. The teams will benefit by listening and spending time with the mentors to get feedback, ask questions and learn as much as possible from their collective experiences. It also gives the selected teams a chance to get to know other entrepreneurs and be inspired by each other.

The teams are then invited to apply for Seedcamp Week in September 2009 held in London, whereby 20 teams are selected from around the EMEA to attend and compete for seed funding and garner world-class connections for start-ups. Along with this, Seedcamp may also invest locally into a start up team that has an exceptionally winning formula.

Israel has a strong reputation for technological start-ups and by hosting a Mini Seedcamp in the region we hope to extend the entrepreneurial ecosystem further, increasing ties with Europe, so that talented teams of entrepreneurs can take the leap and start world-class businesses.