Israel’s famed VC Jon Medved, diagnosed with ALS, backed the tech that will improve his life 

Years ago, when venture capitalist John Medved got interested in backing several health technology startups, he had no idea that one day, he would need them to improve his quality of life.

Israel’s tight-knit startup community was dealt a blow in October when Medved, one of the most popular venture capital firms, announced he would retire immediately. He was forced to step down from the company he founded, OurCrowd, after being diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.

“This came rather out of the blue,” he told TechCrunch in an audibly hoarse voice — a symptom of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis — in what could be his final interview.

“I was feeling a little weird before and they didn’t know what was hurting me,” he explained. “I was in hospital for several weeks recovering, and that’s when they tested me and said, ‘You have ALS,’ which is a terrible disease, the worst you can imagine.”

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis is a condition that causes the deterioration of motor neurons in the brain, leading to loss of muscle control, ultimately leading to impairment of walking, speaking, eating, and breathing. He said he did not suffer from the classic symptoms, as his voice was attacked first, not his limbs. But he knows that the condition will get worse, and there is no cure, only treatments.

Medved is considered one of the fathers of Israel’s startup ecosystem — often called “Startup Nation” after the decades-old best-selling book of the same name. He helped make that happen, having moved from California to Israel in his 20s, then founded and sold several technology companies before turning to investing.

In 2013, he founded OurCrowd. While Israel has many strong local venture capital firms, as well as branches of global companies like Bessemer, OurCrowd essentially invented crowdfunding venture capital, where the limited partnership was open to any accredited investor.

The company says its roster has attracted limited partners from Asia, Europe, the Middle East and North America, growing a network of 240,000 accredited investors in 195 countries. Many of them are doctors, lawyers and ordinary people who not only help their venture firms but would also otherwise be excluded from the wealth generation experienced by venture capital firms.

OurCrowd has backed names like Anthropic, Beyond Meat, and Lemonade.

Medved describes OurCrowd as now a “significant player” backing about 500 venture firms with about 74 exits, including an exit two weeks ago when it sold infrastructure planning startup Locusview for $525 million to Itron.

Despite Israel’s conflict with Gaza, which has affected its citizens and put the nation in the global spotlight over the Palestinian humanitarian crisis, its startup ecosystem has remained strong.

As an “emerging nation,” Israel remains a major player in cybersecurity and defense technology as well as artificial intelligence, microchips, enterprise software, food technology, health technology – the entire technology stack. For example, in November, “$800 million was invested in the Israeli investment ecosystem in one week,” Medved said. The country now has nearly 100 unicorns, and over the course of the year, it is estimated that between $15 billion and $16 billion was invested in the country in venture deals.

Now the technology used by some of these startups will help him deal with an otherwise incurable condition.

For example, he had an avatar made of him that retained his voice, face, and mannerisms. (The photo/video-realistic digital twin was filmed and the full video can be viewed here.) D-ID, maker of agents and avatars in the OurCrowd AI suite, has teamed up with voice AI startup ElevenLabs and other companies through the ALS-focused Scott-Morgan Foundation to create an avatar system designed for people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

He had just tested this technique during a Zoom call with another person with ALS who was using the avatar to communicate.

“So these things became very personal for me,” Medved said. “He’ll keep my voice when he’s gone.”

But he said there will be a variety of emerging technology that he will rely on.

“We’ve made 60 to 70 investments in health care in good companies that help people. We have a company called OncoHost, which uses artificial intelligence to help choose the type of immunotherapy that’s actually right for you…We have companies doing next-generation genome sequencing. We have companies doing chronic condition management,” he catalogs.

“I tell you now as someone who was healthy [who took health for granted] You’ve felt human pain and disease, but once you actually engage in one of these nasty diseases, it changes your perspective.

All of this means that despite stepping down from his position running the company and possibly retiring from the public eye, “I’m not done yet, okay? I want to keep contributing, both to OurCrowd and to the overall ecosystem. So I fully intend to not go [quietly] On this good night.”

Ultimately, he says, “I’m very proud that we’re part of this movement, even though we’re all invested.”

A video showing Medved’s “digital twin” shows how real his avatar really is.