A Founder’s Guide to Mastering Media Exposure in the Israeli Tech Scene

Let me start with a truth from my side of the desk: as a journalist covering the Israeli tech scene for years, I can tell you that we don’t report on products; we report on stories. In an ecosystem as famously dense and relentlessly dynamic as Israel’s, a simple press release announcing your latest funding round is just noise.

It’s a data point, not a narrative. It might get you a line in a news brief, but it won’t build your brand, attract top talent, or catch the eye of that tier-one VC you’re chasing.

The real goal, the one that separates the startups that make a lasting impact from those that are just a flash in the pan, is to build a narrative that journalists want to follow.

This guide is my attempt to give you the playbook for doing just that. It’s about shifting your mindset from transactional PR, which involves blasting out a press release and hoping for the best, to strategic, long-term communications that turn your company’s journey into a compelling story.

Israel’s tech scene operates with a unique cultural context. We’re famous for our chutzpah, a shameless audacity and directness that can be a powerful asset.

It fuels the “nothing is impossible” mindset that has turned a small country with few natural resources into a global innovation powerhouse. This same directness can be incredibly effective in a pitch; it cuts through the fluff. However, it can also be a pitfall, especially when dealing with international media, where it can be misinterpreted as arrogance or a lack of finesse.

Throughout this guide, I’ll show you how to harness that incredible Israeli energy, that relentless drive, and channel it into a sophisticated media strategy that works both here at home and on the global stage.

The Media Landscape, A Strategic Map for Founders

To navigate any territory, you need a map. What follows is not just a list of publications, but an intelligence briefing on the key players in the Israeli tech media landscape. Understanding their audience, their focus, and their role in the ecosystem is the first step to crafting a pitch that lands.

The Titans of Israeli Business News (and Their Global Arms)

These are the heavyweights. A significant story in one of these outlets signals to the market, both locally and internationally, that you have arrived.

Calcalist & CTech

Think of Calcalist as the Wall Street Journal of Israel. In Hebrew, it is the undisputed authority on finance, business, and technology for the local C-suite. Its English-language arm, CTech, is the primary vehicle through which major Israeli tech news is broadcast to the world. When a global VC, a corporate development executive in Silicon Valley, or a London-based investment banker wants to know what’s happening in Israeli tech, they read CTech. Its daily newsletters are a staple, providing briefs on everything from funding rounds to market trends.

However, to see Calcalist and CTech as mere publications is to miss their most important function. They are active, powerful ecosystem builders. Their series of international conferences, most notably “Mind the Tech,” held in major global hubs like London, New York, and Miami, are not side projects; they are core to their identity and business model. These events serve as a physical bridge connecting Israeli entrepreneurs with the global venture capital industry, featuring top-tier speakers like the founders of Palo Alto Networks and Rapyd, and partners from funds like Accel and Seedcamp.

For a startup, being selected for Calcalist’s “Dream Team Showcase” at one of these events provides a level of exposure and direct access to investors that a dozen articles could never achieve. Therefore, your strategy for Calcalist must be two-pronged: pitch their journalists for coverage, but also, and perhaps more importantly, engage with their events as a strategic platform for growth.

Globes

If Calcalist is the WSJ, Globes is the Financial Times. It is the paper of record for the Israeli market, with a deep and respected focus on public markets, finance, IPOs, and the intricate dance between business and government. While its tech section is excellent, it tends to focus less on the “hot new seed-stage startup” and more on significant financial events: major M&A deals, a company filing for an IPO on the Nasdaq, shifts in the stock price of publicly traded tech firms, and major executive movements at established companies.

Getting a story in Globes signals market maturity and financial significance. It’s the place you want to be when you’ve crossed a certain threshold in revenue, when you’re making a major acquisition, or when your company’s story has broader economic implications. Their journalists are sharp, financially literate, and expect you to know your numbers. A pitch to Globes should be data-rich and focused on the business and market impact of your news.

TheMarker

TheMarker, part of the Haaretz Group, holds a special place in Israeli business journalism. It was founded with a mission to drive a more critical and transparent discourse about the Israeli economy, famously taking on the concentration of power among a few families. This DNA is still present today.

While it covers the high-tech industry extensively, its approach is often more analytical and contextual. A story in TheMarker is less likely to be a simple celebration of a funding round and more likely to be an exploration of what that funding round means for a particular sector, for the labor market, or for Israel’s competitive position globally. Pitching TheMarker successfully often requires a story with a broader angle, one that touches on policy, societal trends, or a fundamental shift in a market.

The English-Language Gateways to the World

These publications are the primary windows through which the non-Hebrew-speaking world views Israel. Their reach extends far beyond the tech community to policymakers, diaspora communities, and international businesses.

The Times of Israel (Tech Israel Section)

The Times of Israel (ToI) is, by a significant margin, the most-read English-language news site about Israel globally. This gives its “Tech Israel” section an incredibly broad and influential audience. While it covers major funding news and business deals, its real strength lies in telling the human-interest and innovation stories that define “Startup Nation”.

This is where you’ll read about a startup using high-res cameras to scare birds off fishponds, a new blood test using AI to treat depression, or researchers using multispectral imaging to study the Dead Sea Scrolls.

A story in Tech Israel is a powerful tool for building brand awareness with a diverse international audience that is interested in Israel but may not be deep in the weeds of enterprise software or cybersecurity.

The reporters here, like Sharon Wrobel, are skilled at translating complex technology into accessible and compelling narratives. When pitching ToI, lead with the “wow” factor: the impact, the unique problem you’re solving, and the innovative approach you’re taking.

The Jerusalem Post (Business & Innovation Section)

As a legacy institution founded in 1932, The Jerusalem Post carries a certain weight and has a loyal international readership, particularly in North America. Its “Business & Innovation” section covers the tech scene, but often through a lens that intersects with its traditional strengths: defense, government, and geopolitics.

This is an excellent outlet for startups in the defense-tech, cybersecurity, and dual-use technology spaces. A story about a new AI technology for financial crime is a good fit, but a story about that same technology being used to track terrorist financing is an even better fit for The JPost. When pitching here, it’s wise to highlight any angle that connects your innovation to broader issues of national security, international relations, or government policy.

The Heartbeat of the Ecosystem

This publication is the voice of the community itself, written by and for the founders, developers, and VCs on the ground.

Geektime

Geektime is the original tech blog of the Israeli ecosystem, and it has maintained its deep connection to the grassroots community of founders and developers.

It is often the first to report on new startups and has a strong focus on product-led stories. While major publications focus on the funding, Geektime is where you go to read about the technology itself, the developer culture, and the challenges of building a product. Getting covered in Geektime signals credibility and relevance within the local tech scene. It shows that you are part of the conversation.

Furthermore, Geektime has evolved into an ecosystem builder in its own right, hosting major events like Geektime Code, Israel’s largest developer conference, which brings together thousands of developers, architects, and tech leaders. This makes Geektime another key example of a media outlet that must be approached as both a publication to pitch and a community platform to engage with.

The most influential Israeli media outlets are not passive observers; they are active participants and architects of the tech ecosystem itself. Their international conferences, startup competitions, and industry summits are fundamental to their business models and represent a primary channel through which the “Startup Nation” connects with global capital and talent. This reality demands a fundamental shift in how founders approach their media strategy.

The process begins by recognizing that publications like Calcalist and Geektime are not just content platforms; they are conveners. They host the very events where key decisions are made, partnerships are forged, and funding is secured. These conferences feature top-tier global speakers, from the CEO of Oracle to partners at Blackstone, creating a gravitational pull for the entire industry.

For a startup, gaining a spot in a curated pitch session like Calcalist’s “Dream Team Showcase” offers a direct, high-credibility line to a room full of the world’s most important investors, an opportunity far more valuable than a simple article mention.

Therefore, a one-dimensional strategy focused solely on pitching journalists for articles is insufficient. A sophisticated communications plan must view these media outlets as potential strategic partners.

Engaging with their events, applying for their competitions, and building relationships with their conference organizers is as crucial, if not more so, than simply sending press releases to their news desk.

This transforms the relationship from a transactional one of ‘please cover my news’ to a strategic one: ‘how can we partner to tell our story on your most impactful platforms?’ Founders must allocate resources, both time and budget, to participate in these key media-led events, treating them as a core pillar of their PR, fundraising, and business development efforts.

Table: The Israeli Tech Media Matrix

To help you make quick, strategic decisions, I’ve created this matrix. Use it to identify the right outlet, the right journalist, and the right angle for your specific story.

Outlet (and English Arm)	Primary Audience	Core Focus	Key Journalists	Ideal Pitch Angle
Calcalist (CTech)	Israeli C-Suite, Global VCs, Finance Community	Funding (Series A+), M&A, Market Analysis, Enterprise Software, Cyber, Fintech	Meir Orbach, Sophie Shulman	“Exclusive on Series B+ funding round with major international VCs,” “Analysis of a major M&A deal,” “Pitch for the ‘Dream Team’ at Mind the Tech.”
Globes	Israeli Business & Finance Community, Public Market Investors	IPOs, Public Companies, Large-Scale M&A, Economy, Infrastructure	Assaf Gilead	“Company has filed for a Nasdaq IPO,” “Major acquisition of a public company,” “Our technology is impacting a key sector of the Israeli economy.”
TheMarker	Israeli Business Leaders, Economists, Policymakers	Economic Impact, Market Trends, Social/Political Angles of Tech		“How our startup is disrupting a traditional industry,” “Our growth reflects a major shift in the Israeli labor market.”
The Times of Israel (Tech Israel)	Broad International Audience, Diaspora, Policymakers	Human-Interest Innovation, Startup Profiles, Funding News	Sharon Wrobel, Ricky Ben-David	“Israeli innovation solves a global problem (e.g., health, environment),” “A unique founder story,” “Our tech was just named one of TIME’s best inventions.”
The Jerusalem Post (Business & Innovation)	International Readership (esp. North America), Policy Wonks	Defense-Tech, Cybersecurity, Gov-Tech, Geopolitical Angles	Anna Ahronheim	“Our technology has significant dual-use (civilian/military) applications,” “We just signed a major contract with a government agency.”
NoCamels	Global Tech & Innovation Enthusiasts, Scientists, Impact Investors	Deep Tech, MedTech, GreenTech, AgriTech, Scientific Breakthroughs		“A deep dive into the science behind our breakthrough,” “How our technology is helping to preserve the planet or save lives.”
Geektime	Israeli Founders, Developers, Early-Stage VCs, Tech Community	Product Launches, Developer-Centric Stories, Seed Rounds, Community News		“Exclusive on our new product launch,” “How we built our tech stack,” “An inside look at our company culture for Geektime Insider.”

The Exposure Multiplier, High-Impact Channels Beyond the Article

In today’s media environment, the written article is just one piece of the puzzle. The most successful companies understand how to multiply their exposure by tapping into high-leverage channels like conferences, podcasts, and influential newsletters. This is where you move from getting coverage to building a commanding presence.

Conferences as a PR Goldmine: A Deep Dive into the Calcalist Model

I’ve touched on this already, but it bears a much deeper look. Media-hosted conferences are the single most underrated PR and business development opportunity for Israeli startups. Let’s use Calcalist’s “Mind the Tech” and “Tech & Invest” conferences as a detailed case study, as the research provides a clear blueprint for how to leverage them.

These events are explicitly designed to be a bridge between Israeli entrepreneurs and the global venture capital industry. They bring hundreds of top-tier investors, corporate executives, and journalists to one place, be it London, New York, or Miami, with the specific goal of meeting Israeli startups. Your job is to be one of those startups. Here is a step-by-step strategy:

Apply for the “Dream Team Showcase.”

This is the crown jewel of the conference for an early-stage company. Calcalist, in partnership with Bank Leumi’s LeumiTech, selects a small number of the most promising Israeli startups to present on the main stage in front of the entire conference audience. This is not a cold pitch; it’s a curated endorsement. The selection process itself is a powerful validation, and the exposure is unparalleled.
Master the B2B Meeting Platform.

All registered attendees get access to a platform to pre-schedule one-on-one meetings. Do not wait for people to come to you. Weeks before the event, your team should be researching every attending VC and corporation and sending personalized meeting requests. This is your chance to have 15-20 highly qualified meetings over two days.
Target the Side Events.

The real networking often happens outside the main conference hall. The opening cocktail receptions and the smaller, invite-only roundtable discussions are where you can have more substantive conversations. Identify the key people you want to meet and make it your mission to connect with them in these less formal settings.
Pitch the Journalists on Site.

Remember, media outlets cover their own conferences exhaustively. Reporters from Calcalist/CTech and other publications will be there, looking for stories. They are often more accessible in this environment than they are via email. Find them, introduce yourself, and give them a compelling, concise pitch. Have a unique data point or a customer story ready that you can share on the spot.

The Rise of Audio: Getting Your Voice on Israeli Tech Podcasts

Podcasts offer a unique opportunity for long-form, narrative-driven storytelling. An hour-long interview allows a founder to go far beyond the soundbites of a news article and share their vision, their personal journey, and their deep expertise. The Israeli tech podcast scene is vibrant and influential. Here are the key players to target:

Inside Israeli Innovation (The Jerusalem Post):

This podcast is perfect for a deep dive into your company’s story and technology. Episodes focus on specific companies and their impact across a wide range of sectors, from defense and health tech to climate and food tech. To get featured, your pitch should focus on a compelling narrative: how a lone soldier became an AI leader, how you are using cell science to fight nuclear weapons, or the unique challenges of cultivating meat.
Bootstrap:

Hosted by well-known ecosystem figures like Hillel Fuld, Bootstrap offers a more informal, insider’s conversation about the Israeli tech scene. This is the platform to share your hot takes on market trends, discuss the realities of startup life, and show your personality. It’s less of a corporate pitch and more of a peer-to-peer conversation.
Invested by Aleph:

As a podcast hosted by one of Israel’s top VC firms, getting on “Invested” is a significant mark of prestige. The conversations, led by Aleph’s Michael Eisenberg, are less about specific products and more about big ideas: the values behind a business, the impact of technology on humanity, and thought leadership. Being a guest here positions you not just as a successful founder, but as a visionary leader in your field.

When pitching a podcast, your approach needs to be different. Don’t just send your company boilerplate. Listen to several episodes to understand the host’s style and the show’s format. Your pitch should propose specific, interesting topics of conversation and explain why you are the right person to discuss them. It’s about the story and the expertise, not just the press release.

The Power of the Inbox: Leveraging Key Newsletters for Intelligence and Visibility

The humble newsletter is one of the most powerful tools in the modern media landscape. For a startup founder, they serve two critical purposes: intelligence gathering and targeted exposure.

Media Newsletters:

Subscribing to the daily briefings from Tech Israel Daily and CTech’s Daily Brief is non-negotiable. This is your daily intelligence report. It tells you which companies are getting funded, which journalists are covering what topics, and what the dominant narratives are in the ecosystem. Reading these religiously is the fastest way to develop a feel for the market and identify opportunities for your own story.
VC Newsletters:

Newsletters from top-tier venture capital firms are a direct line into the minds of investors. Reading the newsletters from firms like Aleph and Remagine Ventures is like getting a monthly briefing on their investment thesis. They share what trends they’re excited about, what they look for in founders, and what they believe is the future of technology. For startups, this is invaluable for refining your pitch. Furthermore, these VCs often feature their portfolio companies in their newsletters, which acts as a powerful third-party endorsement to a highly curated audience of other investors and potential partners.
Community Newsletters:

Platforms like Startup for Startup offer newsletters filled with tactical, peer-to-peer advice on building a company. These communities are a great place to build credibility by contributing guest posts or sharing your own hard-won lessons. It’s a way to gain visibility and establish yourself as a helpful expert within the founder community itself.

A single piece of news, such as a funding announcement, should not be treated as a monolithic event. To achieve maximum impact, it must be “atomized” and tailored to the unique characteristics of different media channels.

This principle of “story-channel fit” is what separates amateur PR from professional communications. The process starts by deconstructing the news into its core narrative components. For instance, a $20 million Series A for a MedTech company contains several distinct stories: the financial transaction, the life-saving technology, the founder’s personal journey, and the market trend it represents. A naive strategy sends the same press release to everyone.

A sophisticated strategy maps each story component to the ideal channel. The exclusive on the funding numbers, the valuation, the investors, the use of funds, is pitched to a financially focused outlet like CTech, whose audience of VCs and bankers cares most about these details. The deep-dive on the innovative AI that powers the medical device, complete with scientific context, is a perfect feature for NoCamels, which specializes in world-changing technology.

The founder’s personal story, what motivated them to solve this specific medical problem, becomes the basis for a compelling interview on a narrative-driven podcast like Inside Israeli Innovation.

Finally, a thought-leadership article analyzing the broader trends in AI in healthcare, authored by the CEO, can be pitched as a guest post to a relevant trade publication. By executing this multi-channel narrative rollout, the startup doesn’t just get one article; it creates a surround-sound effect, reaching multiple key audiences with a message tailored specifically to resonate with each one.

The Art of the Pitch, A Journalist’s Guide to Getting Noticed

This is where the rubber meets the road. You can have the best story in the world, but if you can’t communicate it effectively to a busy journalist, it will never see the light of day. As someone who receives hundreds of pitches a week, let me give you a masterclass in how to craft a pitch that gets opened, read, and acted upon.

From Funding to Feature: Crafting a Compelling Narrative

Before you write a single word of your pitch, you must have a clear and concise answer to three questions:

Why this? What is the core news? What is new, different, or significant about what you are announcing?
Why now? What makes this story timely and relevant to the current conversation? Is it tied to a market trend, a recent event, or a major industry shift?
Why should anyone care? This is the most important question. What is the broader impact of your news? How does it change things? A startup using AI to find the right treatment for depression isn’t just a tech story; it’s a story about a new frontier in mental healthcare. A company turning sea power into clean energy isn’t just an engineering story; it’s a story about fighting climate change. Your pitch must articulate this bigger picture.

The Anatomy of a Perfect Email Pitch

Journalists are drowning in email. Your pitch needs to be an island of clarity and brevity in a sea of noise. Here is a simple, effective structure:

Subject Line: Make it specific and compelling. “Exclusive: Israeli Startup Raises $15M to Revolutionize” is much better than “Press Release from.”
The Hook (First Paragraph): Get straight to the point. In one or two sentences, state the core news and why it’s significant. This is your only chance to grab my attention.
The Body (Bulleted Key Points): Do not make me read a dense block of text. Use bullet points to highlight the most important information:

Total funding raised and key investors.
The specific problem you solve.
A key metric demonstrating traction (e.g., revenue growth, user numbers).
A quote from the CEO explaining the vision.

The Bigger Picture (Final Paragraph): Briefly explain the broader market context and why this story matters now.
The Close: State clearly what you are offering (e.g., “I can offer you the exclusive on this story” or “I can connect you with the CEO for an interview”). Include a link to your press kit.

Remember the advice from experts: keep it short, simple, and free of typos and clichés. And never, ever, send just a link to a press release with no context. That’s not a pitch; it’s spam.

The Rules of Engagement: Media Relations Etiquette

Building good relationships with journalists is a long-term investment. Don’t burn bridges with sloppy or unprofessional behavior.

Research is Non-Negotiable: This is the cardinal rule. Before you pitch me, you must know what I cover. Read my last five articles. Look at my Muck Rack or X (formerly Twitter) profile to see what I’m interested in. If you pitch me a story that is completely outside my beat, you are telling me you haven’t done the most basic homework, and I will likely ignore all your future emails. Personalize your pitch by referencing a recent article of mine that you enjoyed, it shows you’re a reader, not just a pitcher.
The Power of the Exclusive and the Embargo: These are your two most powerful tools.

The Exclusive: Offering your story to a single, top-tier publication first is the best way to get a journalist’s attention. It makes us feel valued and gives us a competitive advantage. When you offer an exclusive, be clear about it in the subject line and the first sentence.
The Embargo: An embargo is an agreement where you provide all the information for a story in advance, with the mutualunderstanding that the journalist will not publish it until a specific date and time. This is a huge benefit for journalists. It gives us time to do our research, conduct interviews, and write a thoughtful, in-depth story instead of rushing to publish a short brief. It also allows you to coordinate your announcement across multiple channels.

The Art of the Follow-Up: My personal rule, shared by many of my colleagues, is this: one polite follow-up email, a few days after the initial pitch, is perfectly acceptable. More than that is annoying. If I’m interested, I will respond. A third or fourth follow-up will not change my mind; it will only damage our relationship.

Leveraging the Israeli “Chutzpah” (Wisely)

As I mentioned, the Israeli character can be a double-edged sword in PR.

The Good: The direct, no-nonsense Israeli mentality can be refreshing. Founders are often bold in their vision and persistent in their mission, which makes for a great story. They are not afraid to make big claims and pursue them vigorously.
The Bad: This same directness can sometimes come across as abrasive or overly aggressive, especially to journalists from different cultural backgrounds. The key is to adapt your message and your style to your audience. A PR expert I know calls this “transcreation,” it’s not just about translating your press release into English; it’s about translating your cultural approach to resonate with the norms of the international media. Be confident, but not arrogant. Be persistent, but not a pest.

Your Digital Press Kit: Make My Job Easier

When a journalist decides to cover your story, they are on a deadline. The easier you make it for them to find the assets they need, the better your story will be. Your press kit should be a simple, well-organized Google Drive or Dropbox folder containing everything a reporter might need.

Here is your checklist:

Logos: High-resolution versions of your company logo, including a version with a transparent background.
Founder Headshots: Professional, high-resolution photos of the founders. Not a cropped picture from a wedding.
Product Imagery: High-quality screenshots of your software or photos of your physical product in action.
Company Boilerplate: A concise, one-paragraph description of what your company does.
The Press Release: The full press release in a simple, copy-paste-friendly format like a Word document or Google Doc. Please, do not send it as a PDF.
Contact Information: Clear contact information for the person who can coordinate interviews.

Part IV: The People Behind the Byline, Key Journalists to Know

Ultimately, PR is about people. Building relationships with the right journalists can make all the difference. While the media landscape is always changing, here are some of the key figures in the Israeli tech scene who you should be reading and, when you have the right story, pitching.

Sharon Wrobel (The Times of Israel): Sharon is one of the most prolific and respected tech reporters covering the Israeli ecosystem for an international audience. Her work for The Times of Israel covers the full spectrum of the “Startup Nation” narrative, from deep dives on the health of the tech economy and major funding rounds to profiles of innovative startups. If your story has a strong innovation angle and is meant for a broad, global audience, Sharon is a key journalist to have on your radar.
Meir Orbach & Sophie Shulman (Calcalist/CTech): This duo at Calcalist represents the pinnacle of tech and finance journalism in Israel. Their bylines are consistently on the biggest and most important stories, the multi-hundred-million-dollar funding rounds, the billion-dollar acquisitions, and the high-profile IPOs. They are deeply sourced within the VC and founder community. If you have a major financial announcement that you want the global investment world to see, Meir and Sophie are the primary targets for your exclusive pitch.
Hillel Fuld (Influencer, Blogger, Connector): Hillel is a unique and powerful force in the ecosystem. He is not a traditional journalist attached to a single publication, but rather a central node in the network, what one person aptly called a “human router.” He is a prolific blogger, vlogger, and speaker whose work is published in top global outlets like TechCrunch and Forbes. More importantly, he is known for his incredible generosity in connecting people. Building a genuine relationship with Hillel is a long-term strategic asset. He can amplify your story across his vast network and make the introductions that can change the trajectory of your company.
International Correspondents (e.g., Mike Butcher, TechCrunch): While not based in Israel, top-tier international journalists like Mike Butcher at TechCrunch are essential for breaking out onto the global stage. As one of the most influential tech journalists in Europe, Israel falls squarely within his beat. Pitching a journalist of this caliber requires a story that transcends the local ecosystem. It needs to have a clear global or European angle, tap into a major international trend, or represent a truly world-class technological breakthrough.

Conclusion: Playing the Long Game, Building a Sustainable Media Presence

I want to leave you with one final thought. Securing media exposure is not a one-time tactic you deploy when you raise a round of funding. It is an ongoing, strategic function of your business, as critical as product development or sales. A sustained media presence does more than just generate buzz; it builds your brand, which in turn helps you hire the best talent, gives investors the confidence to write bigger checks, validates your company for potential customers and partners, and establishes your founders as thought leaders in your industry.

The most successful companies I’ve covered over the years are the ones that understand this. They don’t just announce news; they tell a consistent and compelling story over time. Every article, every podcast interview, every conference presentation is an opportunity to reinforce their core message and build their narrative. They play the long game. This playbook, I hope, gives you the map, the tools, and the insider’s perspective to do the same. Now go out and tell your story. I’ll be reading.