Board of Directors
Eitan Dekel, Director
Eitan Dekel is general partner of Magma Venture Partners, a leading venture capital firm investing in the Israel-related communications and semiconductor sectors. Prior to joining Magma in 2000, he worked in the advanced technologies group of the cellular infrastructure division of Motorola, where he was responsible for seeking new technologies and screening Israeli startups to complete Motorola’s offering. At Motorola, he also served as a system engineer responsible for the design and implementation of one of Israel’s nationwide cellular networks. Eitan has held several engineering positions with the Communications Corps of the Israel Defense Forces.
Eitan has a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology and an MBA from the University of Manchester.
Dr. Eyal Kishon, Director
Dr. Eyal Kishon is co-founder and managing partner of Genesis Partners, one of Israel's leading technology-driven venture capital firms. He began his venture capital career in 1992 and is recognized as one of Israel's leading venture investors. He possesses a unique combination of a broad technology background and an intimate understanding of Israel’s VC industry. He focuses primarily on communications and semiconductor investments. Eyal is currently a board member at Allot Communications, AudioCodes, Celtro, FIS and Valens. Before entering the venture capital industry, he worked at the IBM Research Center, where he led a team that developed notebook computer handwriting recognition products. He also led a team at AT&T Bell Laboratories’ Robotics Research Department which was granted a patent for signature verification for interactive security systems.
Eyal holds a doctorate in computer science and robotics from the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at New York University and a bachelor’s degree in computer science from the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology.
Dror Jerushalmi, CEO and Co-Founder
As CEO and co-founder of Valens Semiconductor, Dror Jerushalmi draws upon his 20 years of high level international business development and marketing management experience in the semiconductor industry to manage the company’s strategy and business. He has led Valens through its first rounding of funding, product demo milestones and the initiation of Valens’ HDBaseT technology as a new global digital connectivity standard.
Previously, Dror was director of business development at Saifun Semiconductor (acquired by Spansion), an Israeli provider of intellectual property (IP) solutions for the non-volatile memory (NVM) market. At Saifun, he was responsible for the sales and marketing of the licensing business and achieved new major licensing deals for the company. Before that he was vice president of marketing at Emblaze Semiconductor (acquired by Zoran Corporation), where he increased the company’s reputation from an unknown to an industry leader recognized by customers, as well as the press and analysts. During Jerushalmi’s tenure, Emblaze made a move into the China and Japan markets, signed strategic partnership agreements with market leaders in the cellular industry and defined two new products. He has also held business development and marketing management positions at Tioga and DSPG.
Dror earned both bachelor’s and master’s (cum laude) degrees in electrical and computer engineering from Ben-Gurion University, Israel and an MBA from Heriot-Watt University, Israel branch.
Massad Eyal, Vice President Research and Development and Co-FounderWith 22 years of R&D management, VLSI engineering and mixed signal design experience, Massad Eyal manages Valens Semiconductor’s R&D and engineering activities. As a co-founder, Massad established the company and its R&D team, as well as developed its HDBaseT technology from concept to real products.
Before Valens, Massad was a co-founder of Mysticom Semiconductor, Israel, where he built the mixed signal design expertise of the company from the ground up. After Mysticom was acquired by TranSwitch, Massad held the position of director of VLSI and managed the entire team and engineering activities of TranSwitch Israel. Prior to that, he held engineering management and design positions developing mixed-signal modules at LSI Logic and at National Semiconductor.
Massad holds a bachelor’s degree (cum laude) in electrical engineering from the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. He is a senior member of IEEE.