Eyal Yechezkell is a family man, an entrepreneur, and a dedicated philanthropist who passionately supports a bounty of causes. Eyal was born in Haifa, Israel where he lived until he was eleven years old. At eleven, Eyal moved with his family to the United States.
For the next ten or more years, Eyal Yechezkell lived in Hollywood, Florida. While he could have gone to any school he liked, Eyal chose to stay in Florida so he could stay close to his family. Eyal ended up attending college at Florida Atlantic University. At FAU, Eyal met a lot of important and inspiring people, including his future business partner Itai Kathein. Eyal Yechezkell graduated with a Finance degree.
After his graduation, Eyal Yechezkell moved to New York City to work in Finance. He first began his professional career as a securities broker. He acquired the necessary licenses and certifications, though in a short time, Eyal discovered he was not fulfilled by the job. Instead, he moved on to work for a financial consulting firm specializing in helping entrepreneurs raise seed capital.
At the firm, Eyal Yechezkell helped these small companies raise capital from accredited investors through private placements. He prepared offering memorandums and subscription documents and helped individual and local businesses build presentations to go in front of high net worth investors seeking to raise money for their new products and companies.
During his work at the consulting firm, Eyal Yechezkell learned how to start and run a business learning from the business plans including the successes and often mistakes of the companies he helped. While he and his company were successful in helping these companies receive funding, not every company they helped managed to allocate their money efficiently for the health and development of their business.
One of the companies Eyal Yechezkell assisted and raised money for was Skinny Cow Ice Cream, which produces delicious products with a super low caloric formula and great branding. The company later sold to Nestle for $76 million and became one of the products used in Weight Watchers. The company has since gone on beyond ice cream products to an array of delicious candies and snacks.
Eyal Yechezkell saw a few successes out of the companies he helped though more often he saw the companies that raised up to a million dollars in investment, just wash the money away. As a result, Eyal felt as though he learned more from the failures he observed then the actual successes. Eyal always jokes, “During my time consulting for these small and upcoming companies, I’ve learned more from their mistakes rather than their successes. When we started our first company, we would often “Pull a George Costanza” and “Do the Opposite” of what we saw other companies doing.
In late 1999, Eyal was approached by Itai Kathein with a unique business plan for an ecommerce Internet startup. They quickly joined forces to start ShopLoop.com, an ecommerce comparison-shopping engine that linked online consumers with the newest online retailers. Unfortunately within a few months the dot com bubble started deflating until a complete burst by 2001.
“We had to completely pivot and go in a different direction,” recalls Eyal. The company ended up rebranding and focused on generating sales and leads for a variety of online and offline companies on a cost per acquisition basis.
Ultimately, Eyal and Itai built a suite of their own proprietary products and services that served millions of online and mobile consumers. Serving as CEO through the years, Eyal managed to grow the Company to over 120 employees and led the marketing and product initiatives including multi-million dollar business development, marketing and media buying deals.
In 2013, Eyal co-founded Appjolt, a mobile data marketing and retargeting platform. He established Appjolt’s technology office in Israel and led the Company’s product, operations and marketing team in New York City. In early 2016, a leading digital marketing solutions company acquired Appjolt.
Today, Eyal is Founder and Partner at Mobixi Ventures where he helps fellow entrepreneurs with their startup business execution through mentoring and seed investments. Eyal lives with his wife and three children in Tenafly, New Jersey and enjoys spending quality time with his family and friends. He plays soccer several times a week and is an avid fan of his hometown team F.C. Haifa and Liverpool Football Club.