Chen Manzur, partner at Goldfarb, Gross, Seligman, is one of Israel’s leading M&A attorneys going on 18 years, hundreds of deals, and billions closed. Chen takes us into the minds of major Tier-1 North American acquirers on deals to acquire Israeli companies, many of whom he has represented. We get into what founders today need to know to not get left behind in a maturing market. This episode is in Hebrew with English-only subtitles.Inside:

• How Tier-1 strategic acquirers see Israeli companies
• How not to get crushed by the serial acquirer's M&A machine
• Why Delaware won’t always save you from Israeli tax
• Handling Innovation Authority's strings with foreign buyers
• LOIs aren’t just formalities, they’re leverage
• Raising the bar on Israeli-on-Israeli deals

Commandment 1: 50-50 co-founders? There’s always an alpha in the room.
Commandment 2: You only get one shot to get your house in order on Day Zero.
Commandment 3: The Israeli tax man is watching, even when you're in Delaware.
Commandment 4: Strings always come attached.
Commandment 5: Detailed LOI or die.
Commandment 6: No misdemeanors on blue and white deals.
Commandment 7: The devil in the details – careful with those first customer contracts.
Commandment 8: 99 problems but dead equity shouldn’t be one.
Commandment 9: It’s all about the Benjamins — and someone’s going to pay for your tax exposures.
Commandment 10: If you don’t know, now you know — your endgame starts on Day One.

About:

Israel's Tech M&A Show, by Zeevi Michel and Sophia Tupolev, delivers unfiltered conversations with key players from the startup lifecycle. This is a podcast for startups about the path to mergers and acquisitions — and their aftermath. We’re here to go behind the scenes to look at how transactions go terribly wrong or terrifically right.

Our goal:

To give founders new perspectives from the buy-side, sell-side, and investors — so they can better plan for their own endgame.

Produced by: Sophia Tupolev

Location: Google for Startups Campus Studio, Tel Aviv

Audio and video editing: Tomer Frishman