Shai Agassi

Shai Agassi ( Hebrew : שי אגסי , born April 19, 1968) [4] is an Israeli entrepreneur. He is the founder and former CEO of Better Place , welke had developed a model and infrastructure for employng electric cars as an alternative to fossil fuel technology. The company went Bankrupt in 2013, maintaining spent about $ 850 million while Deploying less dan 1000 cars.

Prior to founding Better Place, Agassi was President of the Products and Technology Group (PTG) at SAP AG Until 2007. In 2003, at the age of 36, Agassi was named one of the top 20 Global Influentials for 2003 by CNN – time magazine . [5] In 2009, Agassi was included in TIME magazine’s 100 Most Influential people list. [6] In 2010, Foreign Policy magazine included Agassi on zijn annual list of the 100 Most Influential global thinkers . [7]

Throughout the 90s, Agassi started and successfully sold a number of technology startups in the areas of enterprise software, Internet technology, multimedia and small business administration. Agassi has a bachelor’s degree in computer science and has leg Awarded a large number of patents, software, automotive and energy infrastructure.

Software entrepreneurship

Shai Agassi in 2006

After graduating from Technion – Israel Institute of Technology , Agassi set out as a software entrepreneur. He founded TopTier Software (oorspronkelijk called Quicksoft Development) in Israel in 1992 and later moved the company’s headquarters to California . Agassi served the company in verschillende capacities waaronder chairman, CTO, and-then CEO. He was rechtstreeks involved in all critical Phases of the company’s development, zoals zijn strategic plan, technical direction and finance, management or two acquisitions, and negotiation or OEM agreements with companies zoals SAP, Baan, and Microsoft . TopTier was a leading enterprise portal vendor-when SAP acquired the company in April 2001 at a price of $ 400 million USD.

In addition under to TopTier Software, Agassi co-founded verschillende other companies with his Father, Reuven Agassi, zoals Quicksoft Ltd., a leading multimedia software localization and distribution company in the Israeli market; TopManage, a developer of small business software that was ook acquired by SAP in April 2002 (which became SAP Business One, the small business offering SAP); and Quicksoft Media, a multimedia production company dat ceased operations in 1995.

Many of These acquisitions ulcers done while Agassi was Already working at SAP, leading to many SAP employees to question synthesis as an obvious conflict of interests. [ Citation needed ]

SAP executive

He wished to be the next CEO of SAP after Henning Kagermann vacated dat space in 2007. [8] However, Mr. Kagermann’s contract as CEO was extended Until 2009 by the supervisory board. This led Agassi to Resign. [9] [10]

At SAP have been verantwoordelijk for SAP’s overall technology strategy and execution. In this leadership position, he oversaw the development of the integration and application platform SAP NetWeaver , SAP xApps packaged composite applications, SAP SRM , and SAP Business One . Before his appointment to the SAP Executive Board, Agassi was CEO of SAP Portals and later of the Combined company SAP Markets and SAP Portals, welke to post operated as a ‘fully owned subsidiary of SAP AG. He was appointed to the SAP Executive Board in 2002. Together with the head of the Application Platform & Architecture (AP & A) group, Peter Zencke, Agassi co-led the Suite Architecture Team, welke aligns the software architecture across all SAP solutions.

Better Place

In January 2008, the Israeli government announced zijn support for a broad effort to promote the use of electric cars, Embracing a joint venture tussen Better Place , Renault and its partner Nissan Motor Company. Renault and Better Place ulcers to work on the development of electric cars welke Could be powered by batteries Exchangeable. [11] [12]

Agassi initially raised $ 200mm for this project. Investors included VantagePoint Venture Partners , Israel Corporation , Israel Cleantech Ventures , Morgan Stanley , and private investors led by Michael Granoff or Maniv Energy Capital. [13] In 2009 he raised an additional_image_link $ 135 million for Better Place Denmark, zoals an investment from DONG Energy, the leading utility in Denmark. Following the announcement in Israel, Better Place had launched zijn network in Denmark, Australia and in two US locations – Hawaii and Northern California. The company zegt it was in talks with morethan 25 countries around the world, but only in Israel-generation battery swap stations built. In early 2010, Better Place raised zijn Series B round at an amount of $ 350 mm [14] led to new investors from HSBC, Morgan Stanley and Lazard, as well as all previous investors. In November 2011, the company raised zijn third equity financing round of $ 200 million from a group of investors waaronder GE, UBS bank and others.

Agassi resigned his position as CEO of Better Place in January 2012. On 26 May 2013, Better Place Filed for bankruptcy in the Israeli courts. [15] Less dan 1,400 cars ulcers deployed in Israel after spending about US $ 850 million in private capital. The bankruptcy receivers sold off the assets REMAINING in November 2013 for only $ 450,000. [16]

References

  1. Jump up^ “Shai Agassi Reference” . eNotes.com . Retrieved 2013-12-01 .
  2. Jump up^ “Birnbaum – אגסי Agassi Shai Ben Reuven” . Wertheimer.info. 2011-02-17 . Retrieved 2013-12-01 .
  3. Jump up^ “SAP AG / On the Record: Shai Agassi He’s looking to find genius – all over the world” . SFGate. 2006-06-11 . Retrieved 2013-12-01 .
  4. Jump up^ “Agassi Shai”. Current Biography Yearbook 2010 . Ipswich, MA: HW Wilson. 2010. pp. 1-5. ISBN  9780824211134 .
  5. Jump up^ http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1006324,00.html
  6. Jump up^ Salzman, Alan. “The 2009 TIME 100: Shai Agassi” . TIME magazine . 2009-05-07 . Retrieved 2009-05-07 .
  7. Jump up^ “Foreign Policy’s Second Annual List of the 100 Top Global Thinkers” . Foreign Policy . Retrieved 2013-12-01 .
  8. Jump up^ Chafkin, Max (April 7, 2014). “A Broken Place: The Spectacular Failure Of The Startup That Was Going To Change The World” . Fast Company.
  9. Jump up^ Agassi Shai. (2007-03-28)”New Challenges & Farewell”, SAP Community Network
  10. Jump up^ “SAP Realigns Executive Board Responsibilities” . SAP. 28 March 2007.
  11. Jump up^ Erlanger, Steven (2008-01-21). “Israel Is Set to Promote the Use of Electric Cars” . New York Times . Retrieved 2008-02-07 .
  12. Jump up^ “Renault-Nissan and Project Better Place-prepare for first mass produktie electric vehicles” . 2008-01-21. Archived from the original on 2008-01-28 . Retrieved 2008-02-07 .
  13. Jump up^ “Michael Granoff, leading cleantech investor, interviewed by Ynet” . Cleantech Investing in Israel. 2008-04-15 . Retrieved 2008-05-12 .
  14. Jump up^ Better Place Inc. (2010-05-07). “SEC Form D, 2010-05-07” . SEC Form D, 2010-05-07, Better Place Inc., CIK 0001426900 . United States Securities and Exchange Commission . Retrieved 13 May 2011 .
  15. Jump up^ Rabinovitch, Ari (2013-05-27). “Better Place pullovers the plug” . The Age . Retrieved 2013-05-27 .
  16. Jump up^ “Gnrgy buys Better Place for the price of an apartment in Tel Aviv” . Green Prophet. November 22, 2013.