“On Black Saturday, like everyone else, I was riveted to the news and Telegram. It took a few hours before I could gather myself; the first call I made was to Nimrod Arnin, one of the Nova party’s producers near Kibbutz Be’eri. That’s how our ‘Command Center’’s story began.”
This conversation was, in retrospect, the starting point for the High-Tech Command Center, initiated by a coalition of tech enthusiasts, entrepreneurs, and investors spearheaded by investor Guy Katsovich and the Fusion investment platform. As a result, the Command Center communicates directly with over 500 civilian and military entities to determine field needs and coordinate more than 1,000 field teams.
To date, the Command Center has raised nearly two million ILS through donations for IDF soldiers and local residents and has transported over 30,000 pieces of equipment to over 200 units and battalions within the IDF. Moreover, the Command Center has played a crucial technological role – in the early stages of the war, it hosted and worked with technological teams from high-tech companies to assist in pinpointing information and geographic locations of missing civilians in the south, focusing particularly on the Nova event. Guy Katsovich, the founder of the Command Center, stated: “The day after Black Saturday, Nimrod Aranin and I were already at the Walnut offices, poring over Excel files from the party’s payment system – which included detailed information such as names, phone numbers, ages, genders, and even links to social networks and photographs – all of which aided our efforts to connect information for identification. We combined this with unstructured data from the production team’s WhatsApp chats and messages – thousands of messages to the party producers with missing persons’ locations – employing civilian positioning systems and technologies.”
“We also succeeded in establishing a static, uniform, and regularly updated information database used by security forces, becoming the authoritative repository,” Katsovich summarizes, “and we physically located dozens of people initially listed as ‘missing’ during the early days of the conflict, of course with the aid of security agencies and emergency response teams that responded to the locations we provided.”
The humanitarian efforts and equipment supplies to the military followed the Command Center’s initial focus on data collection and information database development for those missing from the Nova event. Guy and Nimrod astutely recognized, in the immediate aftermath of the terror attack, that the party organizers possessed essential raw data about the missing individuals and swiftly acted to convey this information to the official authorities.
Guy Katsovich and the Fusion Fund have been prominent in the high-tech sector in recent weeks for their contributions to the civilian front. Established just a few hours after Black Saturday’s events began, the Command Center persists in operation. Concurrently, under the auspices of the fund, the “Strong Together” initiative was launched to support a resilient rearguard, offering community and practical resources on various topics for citizens dealing with contemporary challenges. This community provides advice on managing stress and trauma, addressing financial and business hurdles, parenting, and personal care and well-being. Meanwhile, Katsovich also fulfills his duties as an active reservist in military intelligence.
Where did the concept of the “Strong Together” community originate?
Katsovich: “During my reserve duty, I recognized we were embarking on a protracted campaign, necessitating a robust infrastructure for the home front – fortifying the rear. Currently, we conduct one to three sessions daily on adult-relevant wartime topics – financial and employee management, business establishment, fundraising for startups, and softer aspects like mental and emotional resilience, trauma coping, and parenting, along with active sessions such as yoga and meditation.”
Many companies featured in this section have commented on the current state of high-tech and the state of mind – Israeli tech delivers. How are things with you?
“After two weeks of stagnation, like everyone else, we realized that part of our responsibility as a strong home front, as an investment fund, and as part of the high-tech industry is to start getting the wheels turning again. In the past few weeks, we have made two follow-on investments in our portfolio companies, and we resumed seeing companies, hoping to make an additional two new investments in preparation for the next round of the fund that begins in December. For us, seeing companies marks the start of a return to normalcy, which is very significant for the resilience of the home front and the economic recovery.”
Guy Katsovich is a Founding Partner @ Fusion, Israel’s leading pre-seed investment platform. Fusion has invested in 100+ startups that have raised $450m with a combined valuation of more than $1b. He’s hosting “Od Podcast” and was chosen as a Forbes 30 under 30 honoree.
Fusion is Israel’s leading pre-seed platform. The fund Fusion is backed by Insight Partners, 50+ serial founders & additional investors. Some of his notable investments are: Innplay Labs (exit), Agora, Hoopo, DigitalOwl, Base, LoudnClear, Apply Design, accSenSe, Behavidance, IndieFlow and more.
Over the last month, Fusion invested in 9 new companies and made 3 follow-on investments. Three weeks after the start of the war, the firm is back on track and keeps looking for new opportunities to invest in.
