Page 18: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (August 2020)

Interview: Hannan Carmeli, theDOCK

L to R: Nir Gartz- man, Noa Schuman (CMO) & Hannan

Carmeli.

Photo: theDOCK theDOCK

Hannan Carmelie & theDOCK:

Fertile Grounds for Innovation

There are many Venture Capital funds helping to drive innovation across indus- try. theDOCK, co-founded by Hannan Carmeli and Nir Gartzman, is unique in that it is working to connect the ports, shipping and logistics industries with pri- marily Israeli-based start-ups. We recently interviewed Carmeli for insights on the path and pace of the companies under theDOCK’s guise.

By Greg Trauthwein

Hannan Carmeli, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of What is theDOCK theDOCK, freely admits that he always wanted to be a ‘Chief “If I were to describe in one sentence - theDOCK is a the-

Dreamer,’ a dream ful? lled with the creation of theDOCK in matic (vertical) Venture Capital (VC) fund,” said Carmeli, early 2017. “My entire career was focusing on operational as- noting that the domain of focus includes ports, shipping and pects of large companies,” Carmeli said, citing his work for “a logistics. Dubbing Israel ‘the startup nation,’ theDOCK team

NASDAQ-traded software company” delivering solutions to started out with events and activities, including Hackathons,

Fortune 500 and Global 1000 enterprises. “I was engulfed in Challenge-driven campaigns, meetups, and networking operations, with little time for (business) dreaming,” he said. events, all sponsored by global partners aiming to tap new

Carmeli and Nir Gartzman founded theDOCK in early 2017, sources of innovation.

allowing him to connect his profession (high tech) with his To date theDOCK has invested in 10 portfolio companies passion for boating, seamanship, navigation. “I got the license over the course of the two+ years, and it maintains an ‘ex- to dream… and execute on it,” Carmeli said. tended portfolio’ of about 50 startups which showed promise. “Overall, we maintain in our CRM details and research data 18 Maritime Reporter & Engineering News • August 2020

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