| name | israeli-startup-investment-analyzer |
| description | Generate a structured investment memo for an Israeli startup deal: market, team, metrics sanity-check, valuation and dilution math, key risks, and a prioritized list of diligence questions. Built for angel and VC investors evaluating an inbound deck or data room. Catches Israel-specific landmines a generic analysis misses: Innovation Authority (rashut hachadshanut) grant overhang and IP-out restrictions, the Delaware flip, Section 102 option plans, founder vesting, and Companies Registrar standing. Use when an investor asks to evaluate a startup, screen a deal, review a pitch deck, write an investment memo, run dilution math, or list diligence questions. Why it matters: an Innovation Authority royalty or IP-out overhang can shrink or block an exit. Do NOT use for founder-side company formation or fundraising (israeli-startup-toolkit), employee option taxation (israeli-stock-options-tax), or public-market TASE stock analysis (tase-stock-analysis). |
| license | MIT |
| compatibility | No network required. The Israeli figures are embedded; the optional MCP servers add live market and registry data when available. |
Israeli Startup Investment Analyzer
Problem
Angel and VC investors get a flood of inbound decks and have minutes to decide which deals deserve a call. A generic read of a pitch deck misses two things at once: the inflated or undefined metrics that hide a weak business, and the Israel-specific legal landmines (an Innovation Authority grant that restricts moving IP abroad, a half-done Delaware flip, a broken Section 102 option plan) that can shrink or kill an exit long after the money goes in. This skill turns a deck or data-room summary into a sharp, sendable investment memo and a prioritized diligence list, with the Israeli specifics checked.
Instructions
You produce an investment memo plus a prioritized diligence question list for an investor evaluating an Israeli startup. You do not give a buy/sell verdict the investor must own that, but you give them the structured judgment and the questions that get them there fast.
Step 1: Establish the investor context and what you were given
Ask (or infer) two things before writing:
- Who is the investor? An angel writing a small personal check screens differently from a fund running formal diligence. Match the depth: a screening memo for a first look, a full pre-term-sheet memo when they are serious.
- What material exists? A one-pager, a full deck, a data room, or just notes from a call. Write only from what you were given. Mark everything you could not verify as an open question; never invent a metric, a valuation, or a grant balance to fill a gap.
Step 2: Build the memo
Follow references/investment-memo-template.md. Lead with the verdict and the single biggest reason, then the evidence. Cover, in order:
- One-line summary and verdict (PURSUE / PASS / NEEDS MORE).
- Market and timing prefer a bottom-up TAM (buyers times realistic ACV); reject top-down sizing (the classic "small slice of a giant market").
- Team domain fit, prior outcomes, gaps, and what to probe on the call.
- Product and moat what is built vs roadmap, and what makes it defensible.
- Traction and metrics sanity check this is where decks inflate. See Step 3.
- Deal terms and cap-table sanity see Step 4.
- Israel-specific due diligence see Step 5.
- Key risks and red flags ranked; separate "diligence resolves this" from "thesis risk".
- Diligence questions the sharp, short list from
references/diligence-questions.md.
Step 3: Pressure-test the metrics
Do not accept deck numbers at face value. The recurring inflations to catch:
- "ARR" that is really pipeline, LOIs, or one big month annualized. Ask for the exact definition.
- Growth shown as a percentage with no absolute base (a huge growth rate on a handful of customers).
- Burn and runway omitted, or runway quoted before the new raise is spent.
- Logos presented as customers when they are pilots or design partners.
- Missing the unit economics: gross margin, net revenue retention, churn, CAC payback, burn multiple.
State which numbers you could verify, which you could not, and which look internally inconsistent.
Step 4: Sanity-check valuation, dilution, and the cap table
Use scripts/cap_table_math.py to check the arithmetic:
- Priced round:
python3 scripts/cap_table_math.py priced --pre <pre> --invest <amount> --pool-pct <pool> gives post-money, the investor's stake, and the dilution on existing holders. Watch whether the option-pool top-up is taken pre-money (founders absorb it) or post-money.
- SAFE / convertible:
python3 scripts/cap_table_math.py safe --safe <amount> --cap <cap> --discount <pct> --price-pre <pre> (add --post-money for a YC-style post-money SAFE). Stacked SAFEs converting together can dilute far more than the deck implies.
- Pro-rata:
python3 scripts/cap_table_math.py prorata --owned-pct <pct> --pre <pre> --invest <amount>.
The script computes ownership arithmetic only. Beyond the math, judge the deal terms (references/investment-memo-template.md section 7 has the full list):
- Economics. Liquidation preference is the term that most often turns a good headline exit into little for late money: distinguish 1x non-participating (the seed norm) from participating or a multiple, and add up the full preference stack from prior rounds. Anti-dilution: broad-based weighted-average is standard; full ratchet is a red flag.
- Control. Board composition (founder / investor / independent split) and the protective / veto provisions are where real control sits at seed even with a minority stake. Check pro-rata, drag-along (can force the investor into a sale), tag-along / co-sale, and ROFR.
Step 5: Run the Israel-specific due diligence
This is the differentiator. Work through references/israeli-dd-landmines.md and summarize findings in the memo:
- Innovation Authority (IIA) grant overhang. If the company took IIA grants, they repay royalties of 3% to 5% of revenue until the grant plus SOFR-based interest is repaid, the funded R&D must stay in Israel, and moving the funded know-how abroad needs IIA approval plus a repayment capped at 6 times the grants plus interest (3 times if R&D jobs stay in Israel for three years). Relocating manufacturing abroad also needs approval and raises the liability (up to 1.5 times the funding). This can shrink or block a US acquisition or a flip. Ask for the outstanding balance and model it against the expected exit.
- Corporate structure / Delaware flip. Single Israeli Ltd or flipped to a Delaware HoldCo + Israeli OpCo? A flip is a transfer of shares by the shareholders, so the tax falls on them: Israeli individuals pay 25% capital gains (30% for a 10% or more holder), plus surtax. Do not quote the 23% corporate rate as the flip tax (that only applies when a company holds the shares). Confirm the flip used Israel's tax-deferred share-for-share rollover with a Tax Authority pre-ruling, that the core IP stays in the Israeli OpCo, and remember a flip on top of IIA grants is a double landmine.
- Section 102 option plan. Healthy plans use the capital-gains track with a trustee (flat 25% plus surtax to the employee, 24-month holding from grant). Note part of the gain can still be ordinary employment income, so it is not uniformly 25%. Check pool health and whether any grants fall outside the rules.
- Cap table, IP assignment, and company standing. Founder vesting / reverse vesting present? Fully-diluted cap table including all SAFEs? Did every founder, employee, and contractor sign an IP-assignment agreement (unassigned IP or an open employee service-invention claim undermines the asset)? Pull the company's official Companies Registrar (רשם החברות) extract to confirm it is active, not a "violating company" (חברה מפרה), and check for registered charges / liens (the
israel-amutot MCP covers non-profits only, so it cannot do this for-profit check).
- Other liabilities. Flag accrued labor liabilities (severance, pension, study fund) and, for data-heavy startups, Privacy Protection Law Amendment 13 exposure.
- Tax status. If a reduced rate is claimed (Preferred Technological Enterprise 7.5% in area A / 12% elsewhere; Preferred Enterprise 7.5% / 16%), treat it as a diligence item to verify, not a given.
Step 6: Deliver
Output the memo as clean, sendable markdown the investor can paste into their notes or forward to a partner. End with the prioritized diligence questions (5 to 10, not 40) that resolve the top risks. Always add: the Israeli legal and tax specifics here are screening signals, not advice, and binding decisions need an Israeli lawyer and accountant.
Recommended MCP Servers
These add live data when the investor wants to go deeper. They are optional; the skill works without them.
| MCP | Use in this skill |
|---|
tase-mcp | Maya company filings and TA-35 / TA-125 data for public comparables when sanity-checking a later-stage valuation. |
israeli-cbs / israel-statistics | Central Bureau of Statistics economic data for bottom-up market sizing and macro context. |
israel-amutot | Corporations Authority registry lookups for non-profits and public-benefit companies. It does NOT cover for-profit companies, so for a startup's standing pull the official Companies Registrar extract directly instead. |
Bundled Resources
| File | Purpose |
|---|
references/investment-memo-template.md | The 11-section memo structure the skill produces. |
references/israeli-dd-landmines.md | The Israel-specific diligence checklist (IIA, flip, 102, registrar, tax status), every figure sourced. |
references/diligence-questions.md | The diligence question bank to draw the prioritized short list from. |
references/domain-checklist.md | Coverage checklist the memo is judged against. |
scripts/cap_table_math.py | Priced-round dilution, SAFE/convertible conversion, and pro-rata math. |
Gotchas
Agent failure modes specific to this domain:
- Treating the deck as truth. The most common error is restating the founder's "ARR" and "growth" as facts. Always interrogate the metric definitions and label what is unverified. A memo that launders deck spin is worse than no memo.
- Ignoring IIA exposure because the grant looks like "free money". The grant is the easy part; the royalty balance and the IP-out restriction are what bite at exit. If the company is deep-tech or took early grants, assume IIA exposure until shown otherwise.
- Confusing founder-side and investor-side framing. This skill evaluates a deal for an investor. Do not slip into advising the founder how to raise or how to set up their 102 plan. That is
israeli-startup-toolkit.
- Doing dilution math in your head. Pre-money pool shuffles and stacked post-money SAFEs are counterintuitive. Use the script; do not eyeball the ownership table.
- Over-asking in diligence. Sending 40 generic questions signals a tourist. The output must be a focused list that resolves the top 5 risks for this specific deal.
- Stating Israeli tax/legal figures as advice. Rates and rules (corporate tax, Preferred Enterprise, 102 conditions) change and depend on facts. Present them as screening signals to verify with an Israeli professional, never as binding conclusions.
Reference Links
Troubleshooting
- The investor only gave a one-line idea, not a deck. Produce a thin screening memo from what exists, and make the diligence questions the main deliverable: the questions that would let them decide whether to take a first call.
- The numbers in the deck contradict each other. Do not reconcile them silently. Surface the contradiction as a red flag and a diligence question.
- No IIA / structure information is given. Do not assume there is no exposure. List the IIA, flip, and 102 checks as open diligence items the investor must confirm before a term sheet.
- The investor wants a valuation. This skill sanity-checks a proposed valuation and its dilution math; it does not produce an independent valuation. Frame the output as "is this price reasonable for this stage and traction", not "the company is worth X".
