The Challenge:

Israel excels at technological innovation, but its customers are abroad. So, its entrepreneurs must operate in unfamiliar territory.

The Solution:

“MarketReach America” — to bridge the gap between Israel and paying customers abroad by providing a ‘continuum of assistance’ on both sides of the ocean.

MarketReach America includes:

• 3 days intensive training in Israel from world-class National Science Foundation Lean Startup/I-Corps entrepreneurial development trainers
• 2 weeks intensive ‘customer discovery meetings” in the Maryland/DC area, home of the FDA and National Institutes of Health
• Access to industry experts, mentors advisors and top tier service providers
• Total cost: (including room and board) $5,000 plus airfare. More than 80% of the program is covered by sponsorships from the Maryland/Israel Development Center, Israel Innovation Authority, Maryland Department of Commerce, University of Maryland, Baltimore and the Abell Foundation

Benefits of the MarketReach America:

• A proven entrepreneurial development model based on the Lean Startup and Innovation Corps (“I-Corps”) entrepreneurial program of the US National Science Foundation
• Intensive U.S. customer discovery
• Insight to “pivot” and deliver a “minimum viable product” to paying customers
• Training to inculcate knowledge into the business culture
• Board of Industry Advisors for each company
• Post Program Support
• Free office space for one year for the top three participating companies

Why Maryland?

Next to Washington, DC, Maryland benefits from the U.S. government’s enormous investment in medical, cyber, IT, defense and other technologies and all their spinoffs, just like Israel!

In health-tech, Maryland is home to ALL the relevant government R&D and public policy agencies with their tens of billions of dollars of research, grants, purchases and partnerships, including the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS), and the military medical research centers at Walter Reed Hospital and Fort Detrick.

The private sector has taken notice with AstraZeneca/MedImmune and GSK’s Vaccine Division building major centers of excellence in the state.

And the world-class academic centers at the University of Maryland and Johns Hopkins University are producing an immensely educated workforce.

So, the market’s here, the workforce is here, and the research is here. In other words, the future is in Maryland!

It’s the same in IT, big data, cyber, defense and homeland security with the U.S. Cyber Command, the National Security Agency (NSA), NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and the three largest databases in the world at the U.S. Social Security Administration, the U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. National Security Agency in Maryland. Maryland knows how to handle data and the technology to develop, analyze and secure it.

On top of all this, just a short drive away are the White House, the Capitol, the Pentagon and the rest of the American government, the largest customer of high tech goods and services in the world.

Online Application