Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Chemi Peres: Overcoming Personal Challenges to Build Pitango, Israel’s Largest Venture Fund | E98
Tue, 22 Apr 2025
Chemi Peres’s journey to success was shaped by both professional challenges and personal loss. After losing his job, he felt humiliated and vowed never to face such a setback again. He pivoted to venture capitalism, co-founding Pitango Venture Capital, Israel’s largest venture fund. Despite his success, Chemi experienced the profound losses of both his father and son. These tragedies fueled his drive to honor their legacies through innovation. In this episode, Chemi joins Ilana to share how he navigated grief and adversity, transforming these experiences into a force for lasting impact. Chemi Peres is the co-founder and managing partner of Pitango Venture Capital, Israel’s largest venture fund, which has invested in over 250 startups. He is also the Chairman of the Peres Center for Peace and Innovation, a non-profit dedicated to advancing peace and technology in the Middle East. In this episode, Ilana and Chemi will discuss: (00:00) Introduction (02:00) Growing Up in a Political Legacy (05:21) The Challenges in Becoming a Combat Pilot (07:59) Lessons from the Israeli Defense Forces (11:59) Transitioning to Aerospace and Career Setback (20:13) Entering the Venture Capital World (27:01) Building Israel's Venture Ecosystem (31:14) Navigating Challenges in Venture Capital (34:52) Turning Personal Loss into a Legacy of Innovation (41:27) Healing by Honoring a Loved One’s Dreams (49:34) How the Peres Center is Shaping Israel’s Future Chemi Peres is the co-founder and managing partner of Pitango Venture Capital, Israel’s largest venture fund, which has invested in over 250 startups. As the son of former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres, Chemi continues his father's legacy by promoting innovation and entrepreneurship. He is also the Chairman of the Peres Center for Peace and Innovation, a non-profit dedicated to advancing peace and technology in the Middle East. Connect with Chemi: Chemi’s LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/chemiperes Resources Mentioned: Pitango’s Website: pitango.com Yuka Monsters’ Website: yukamonsters.com Leap Academy: Ready to make the LEAP in your career? There is a NEW way for professionals to Advance Their Careers & Make 5-6 figures of EXTRA INCOME in Record Time. Check out our free training today at leapacademy.com/training
Chapter 1: Who is Chemi Peres and what is his background?
Chemi Perez, co-founder and managing partner of Pitango Venture Capital, which is really Israel's largest venture capital fund, was over $3 billion in assets under management.
I always wanted to engage with new technologies, to meet other people. And when I looked at venture, I thought this is the right way to go, to raise money, to invest it in the best and brightest. It's very fulfilling.
You lost your dad in 2016. I think a lot of people don't know you lost your son Guy a few years ago. How did that impact all of you?
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Chemi Peres, I am so excited about this conversation today. He is the co-founder and managing partner of Pitango Venture Capital, which is really Israel's largest venture capital fund with over $3 billion in assets under management. I mean, it's invested in over 250 startups. Chemi is also the son of Shimon Peres, the former prime minister of Israel.
And Chemi continues his father's legacy in the most beautiful way as a chairman of the Paris Center of Peace and Innovation, where he really uses technology to foster peace and collaboration. Super inspiring. Chemi, I'm looking forward to this conversation. Thank you for coming.
Thank you, Ilana. It's a pleasure to be here.
So I have to take you back in time because I kept thinking, what is it like to grow up with someone like Shimon Peres? For all of us that know him, everybody in Israel knows him. Most of the people in the world know him. He was a huge inspiration to so many people. What is it like?
Well, I don't know anything else. That's what I know. But I can tell you this. First of all, I have two wonderful parents. And if you imagine a picture, the view of the life consists of vertical and horizontal lines. I think my mother gave me the horizontal ones, the modesty. And my father gave me the vertical ones to aspire, to dream, to serve a great cause.
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Chapter 2: What was it like growing up in the Peres family?
as long as we are decent people, as long as we follow our hearts. So I think when you are young, you need to build your muscles, you need to build your standing for who you are, not for what you are. And I think as you grow and you are safer, then you can get closer and closer. And I think that's the pattern that we followed in our life.
At the beginning, you shy away because you really want to be the person you are and not have anyone judge you for your father. So anything that you did good, people may say it's because of him and everything bad is a disappointment. But I think we're lucky. We came up normal. We came up stable. And each one of us chose a different direction. And I'm happy with what I did.
But as you grow, you tend to get closer. And that's beautiful. I'm grateful that he lived to 93 and we had all the time to catch up.
Oh, my God. I will go back to that because you did have a very special relationship with him and also your kids had a very special relationship with him. But when you were about 18, I guess you went to the military just like every Israeli and you actually went to pilot school. But I think there were some challenges there. What did you face and what did you learn?
Because I believe that the military is one of the best schools possible. It taught me a lot, but I'm curious about you, Chemi.
To make it short, in the middle of the course, you run through medical tests.
And that's the pilot course, just to make sure everybody follows.
Yeah. In my time, it was like two years. It's a course of two years. And after a year, I went to regular checkup. and they discovered that my lungs are not functioning fully. When I was a child, I had a very severe asthma. There were a lot of liquids in my lungs, so I was not able to get 100 percent functionality of my lungs.
As a result, they reduced my medical profile to such a level that I had to leave the flight course. Since I wanted to be a warrior, a combat participant, I went back to the green military service in a platoon of tanks. I spent a year in the army, but I was very anxious to get back to the flight course because I felt that they went too far with me.
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Chapter 3: What challenges did Chemi face becoming a combat pilot?
It's almost a different breed. Yeah. And I think entrepreneurship to some extent is constantly debriefing. It's that agility that you get that is almost opposite. But tell me, Chemi, so around, I think, age 24 or so, you also became a dad. Did that somehow scare you from flying or impacted flying in any way or not? Or how did that catch you?
You know, when you're 24, you have a family, you have a son, and you are in the Israeli Air Force, you're maturing very quickly. And you understand the responsibility that you have both as a family member and as an Air Force member. It actually drives you to maturity earlier than maybe should. One should, but definitely it creates another level of responsibility that you have to deal with it.
I think I was premature at the time. I did not really understand what it means to become a father. It took some time to adjust to the idea that that little thing that is screaming there is your responsibility.
Trust me, at about a week old, I took him swimming with me and I was like, sit down and watch me swim because I have to go back to the regime. So yeah, I had my moments as well too. Okay, life is a little different now. And I think you finished the Air Force and you do go to Israel Aerospace Industries. I think in Israel, everybody knows it, but there was a big project called the Levi Project.
Tell us a little bit about what it was to move from military, 10 years as a pilot, that's a lot, or in the military, right? And then to move into kind of more, I don't know if I would call it corporate, it's different, but how do you see that change and shift?
So it was a change, but as a matter of fact, you continued somewhat part of what you have done because we worked in an environment that had a lot of pilots and a lot of engineers in the Israeli aerospace industries. So it's moving from the Air Force to a defense company was, I think, a little bit softer than if you had to move to something that has nothing to do with defense.
But I was very busy in making sure that I can provide for my family because my parents were not wealthy. They did not create wealth for themselves. They dedicated their life for the state. And so I had to take care of myself. And what happened is that I noticed that I'm 28 years old. I have to study and work and provide for myself from the very beginning. I had to do everything in parallel.
At this point, do you have two or three kids?
In 28, I had only the first one.
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Chapter 4: What lessons did Chemi learn from his military service?
Which is just an interesting way to look at focus overall and products overall. Like, where is your edge?
And also the importance of the software versus the hardware. But I think what happened is that at that time, the government, the prime minister was Rabin. My father was minister of foreign affairs. My father actually led the coalition against the Libyan.
Ouch. What did that do to the relationship? I have to hear that.
No, we didn't talk about it. But, you know, he was the founder of the Israeli aerospace industries. And by nature, he was supposed to be the one who will drive those kind of projects with his vision and optimism. But he was also very realistic and he understood that it's not going to work. It's too costly. It's too expensive. controversial and not embraced.
And he thought that we need to take a hard decision. And so the government voted to stop the project. I think it was the majority of one. And obviously, when it happened, they had to shut down the project. It was devastating. And for the first time and the last time in my life, I experienced what it means to be fired from your job.
And somebody actually needs to tell Chemi that it's sort of because of your dad.
I feel sorry for the executives that had to fire thousands of people. They were doing the hard job. But I can tell you from my own experience, when you are fired from a job, it doesn't matter how good you were, how well you were, or how much you were appreciated, or how important your work was, and it's not your fault.
Still, it's a very humiliating event, a situation which I cherished very deeply in my memory to always remember that if I need to fire people, I need to be very, very sensitive. And I knew what they feel. And also I promised myself that I'm not going to be in that position anymore. I will never accept another position or situation like that.
in my life, which means that I'm going to be the decision maker and the one who's responsible for his destiny. And that is a life-changing event. And with that, I moved on.
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Chapter 5: How did Chemi transition from the military to aerospace industry?
And the two guys that were running the pub, they said, if you guys are buying it, we believe we can make it profitable. So we went with them and the company shortly after went public, it changed its name to Tower Semiconductors. They did a great job and we took the company public and there was huge success for the company.
And then as we were looking for products to get into the civilian market, I started to have meetings with some young people that came up with ideas. but they had no way to fund it. So they wanted us, they heard about us. We went public and we did this. They thought that we are a strategic partner. They wanted us to invest in minority.
And I told them, look, we're not going to invest in minority in companies. Either we buy the company or we license the product. But for sure, we're not going to have a minority in the board seat. But I saw that there are great ideas and there's no platform to finance those ideas. So I spoke with the CEO, who unfortunately, a few years later, passed away of cancer.
And I told him, look, we need to build a platform to finance these projects. It can be done on our balance sheet. And one of the advisors of the company came in and said, look, there is a program by the Israeli government. It's called Inbal.
which is the insurance arm of the Israeli government, they came up with an idea or suggestion or offering that venture funds that will raise money on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange will get insurance. 80% of your investment is going to be protected. And based on those guidelines, we decided to build a company.
We raised $1 million from our own company, but also from some business people and a small investment bank that was active in Israel. And that $1 million was enough in terms of equity to take a company public at the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange. We raised $7 million on top of it.
And that's how I started the first fund, which was MoFed, which means industrial R&D exemplar in a free translation, but also the initials of industrial R&D. And I started to invest in young companies, Very inexperienced. And it was an amazing ride. I did it as a part-time job on top of what I did in the company.
But I fell in love with the founders, with the vision, with the broad view of different things you can do. And at some point in time, I said, I want to move full-time to run the fund. And they agreed. So that's what I did.
And that's around the 90s, right, Remy, for people who are listening?
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Chapter 6: What happened when the Lavi project was cancelled?
This program helps hundreds a year and it will help you gain the income, influence, and impact that will transform the second part of your life. Watch our free training today at leapacademy.com slash free hyphen training. The link is in the show notes. Now back to the show. I actually want to take you, if it's possible, to maybe deeper places for you, Chemi.
Because the last 10 years of your life have been pretty rocky on a personal level. And if it's okay, I want to take you there. I mean, first of all, you lost... your dad in 2016, which I'm sure impacted a lot of things, but you also, which I think a lot of people don't know, you lost your son, Guy, a few years ago.
And this changes everything on life and legacy, and I'm sure everything you can think of. So first of all, let's talk about your dad, because I think that's insanely hard, but it's also a little more... And then if it's possible, how did that impact all of you?
My father was a surprise. Although he was 93 years old, I have a very good friend. He's an American physician that we used to meet every year in the World Economic Forum. And he would check him. Every time we were there, he would look at me. He would talk to him. And I told him, what do you think? He said, he will be a centennial. He will live to 100.
So when he died at the age of 93, I was shocked. I couldn't understand what happened. I have a diary that I write every day and I browsed through the last year and I've seen through my notes, there was a process that I could have understood that life do not goes on forever. I think the challenge was I was at the time working with him at the Paris Center and I was chairman.
And I thought to myself, what are we going to do next with the center? A few years before that, I asked him to write a spiritual will for the center after 120 years. He wrote a beautiful document that I have full of vision. And what I did is, the day after he passed away, after the funeral, I gathered everyone in the center and said, those who want to leave, feel free to leave.
I'm not holding anyone. But those who want to carry on the mission are welcome to stay. And the way we're going to operate is as if he's here, stepped out of the room. We need to figure out the road ahead. and follow the footsteps. We're not trying to fill in the shoes, but we need to walk the walk.
And that was also triggering the notion that his legacy is the legacy of tomorrow, not a legacy of memory. And legacies of tomorrow can grow over time because it's action. We're not a museum. We're not leaning back and thinking about what was the past. But he constantly said the past is not interesting because you cannot change it. Only the future is interesting. So we follow that idea.
We managed also to help him write a book, the last book before he died. A few weeks before that, we finished the writing and we took upon ourselves to publish it. And it's called No Room for Small Dreams. It's a short memoir of lessons he learned and achievements that can be served for future leaders. Lessons of resiliency, of optimism, of believing in what you do, of serving a great cause.
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Chapter 7: How did Chemi recover from being fired and start his venture capital career?
that people will look forward into the future, try to imagine what the future brings to us. The future is sending signs. Methodologically, you need to be able to identify them and separate them from noise and get ready for what's happening next, whether it's AI, whether it's climate change, and take action, not just be a think tank, but a do tank. So we're working on that.
That's the third layer of the center. If the first one was privatizing peace, the second one was building the innovation center, and now it's about the future.
And by the way, for those who haven't seen it, this is one of the most beautiful, inspiring buildings, locations. It's a place that you go there and you immediately feel a lot more innovative, inspired, hopeful. Like it's just so, so, so special. But how do you balance between your own legacy and the legacy that you're building for your dad? Is there a way to balance?
Some people say that you need to wear two hats, but I'm saying I wear one hat with two hats. I'm a believer in the same things that he believed in. We shared the love for innovation, for technology. We believe that the future holds so much promise. If you marry this with values, human values, make sure that it goes on the right way. So it's very easy for me to do that. That's what I'm doing.
And I have an amazing team at the center, which makes it even easier. But I feel that he's with us, and I think that we carry the legacy forward. And I'm having these discussions from time to time with him, spiritually, of course.
And I think he would have been proud the way the center continues to operate and get an impact by fostering innovation and entrepreneurship, optimism, future looking, forward looking, and all the activities that we do with all the people that come from abroad and from within Israel. And of course, working with Arab countries. It's very fulfilling.
So I combined my work at Bitango with the center and it works quite well, I must say.
You wear a lot of hats because you somehow managed to do so many things that I can't even wrap my head around it. And I'm a big believer in portfolio careers, but your portfolio career is a whole different level. But take us to 2022. How do you recover?
Well, Guy was an illustrator, very talented, very smart, very bright. I won't say a genius, but maybe he was a genius. Very capable, extremely smart and knowledgeable. You'd never win when you argued with him. He had a very clear view of the world. And from a very early stage in his life, he was focused on superheroes and gaming and movie and music, comics.
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Chapter 8: How did Chemi start Pitango and build Israel's venture capital ecosystem?
Let's go back to the prayer center just for a second to end kind of on a positive, inspiring note. As far as I can see, the center has this mission of building a brighter future. How do you see the center's mission in overall Israel and how do you cultivate it?
The mission of the center, as was written in the spiritual will, in a brief way is to strengthen the island, protect it. The island means Israel, and calm the ocean, which is reduce hostility and calm the ocean. The way we do it is by the three platforms that we created. The first one is people-to-people projects. We call it privatizing peace or coexistence or shared future.
We work on a lot of programs with different people, mostly young people around sports, around healthcare, around business, around entrepreneurship, culture. And over the years, we impacted hundreds of thousands of people through these programs. The second one is to foster innovation, to provide a future for the young people to understand that They are capable to achieve everything.
They need to be entrepreneurs and they need to embrace what the world of technology and innovation is offering them. There's no limit to where they can go. So we showcase and we build a community and we do events and we do programs where we teach people across all walks of life about innovation. And the third mission is to bring Israel to the future.
to focus on nature, to learn how to research the future. I'm not talking about just futurists. I'm talking about every person, every company, in every aspect. It can be in healthcare, it can be in work, it can be in education. How do you deal with things that are going to disrupt or provide opportunities, whether they are man-made or nature-made, or a combination of the two?
Disruption and opportunities are scaling up and we need to be much more aware of the future. So for me, it's the human factor of people to people. It's the platform for innovation and entrepreneurship, and it's a deep look into the future. By doing that, we try to shape a new tomorrow. that can be shared by people, that is accessible to people.
Because, again, some people say that the Israelis are different tribes. They're not a people, they're tribes. I think it's a question of leadership. But most importantly, we are busy and looking backwards at what happened to us instead of looking at the future and see what the opportunities are. My father said that people prefer to remember than to think.
Remembering is the past, thinking is the future. And a lot of people are looking back at what they did, and they're very pleased sometimes with their achievements, but for him it was not important. What happened in the past is done, it's gone, we cannot change it. Whether it's a great success or a failure, you just need to rise up and move into the future. And the future sets the agenda for today.
So the past has been forgotten. The present has no meaning. And what sets your activities and agenda is the future. So we try to bring those values to as many people as possible.
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