Follow The J Street Money Trail

If you go here, and review the IRS 900 form of J Street, on page 5 you'll discover that Davidi Gilo is President and a Director of J Street.

Who is Davidi Gilo?

This site reveals that:

Davidi Gilo has served as our Chairman of the Board of Directors since 1996. Mr. Gilo served as our Chief Executive Officer from April 1999 until October 2000, and was reappointed as Chief Executive Officer in October 2001 until April 2007. Mr. Gilo also served as our Interim Chief Financial Officer from October 2001 until August 2002. From October 1998 until November 1999, Mr. Gilo served as chairman of the board of directors of DSP Communications, Inc., a developer of chip sets for wireless personal communication applications, and from June 1999 until November 1999, he served as DSP Communications; chief executive officer. Mr. Gilo also served as the chairman of the board of directors of DSP Communications from its founding in 1987 through November 1999. Mr. Gilo served as chairman of the board of directors of Zen Research N.V., a developer of technology and intellectual property for use in CD and DVD optical storage devices, between July 1995 and December 1999, and served as Zen Research plc;s chairman from April 2000 to October 2003. Between 1987 and 1993, Mr. Gilo was president and chief executive officer of DSP Group, Inc., and he served as chairman of the board of directors of DSP Group from 1987 until April 1995. Mr. Gilo is a director of several privately-held corporations and is highly active with several US and Israeli based charities.

And who is this "our"?

Vyyo.

Here:

Vyyo, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, provides cable and wireless broadband access solutions for residential and business services in the United States, Malaysia, the People’s Republic of China, and internationally. It operates in two segments, Cable Solutions and Wireless Solutions...Vyyo’s products are designed for use by utilities, cable television, telecommunication, and wireless Internet service providers. The company was incorporated in 1996 and is headquartered in Norcross, Georgia.

I also found this, with an Israeli spin-off (with emphasis on "off"):

Vyyo faces $45M buyout tender from group that includes former chairman, CEO
By Mike Robuck, CedMagazine.com - October 24, 2008

An investment group led by former Vyyo chairman and CEO Davidi Gilo has extended its offer to buy the company.

Vision Acquisition Corp., which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Gilo Ventures II,(*) made an offer to buy the 7,967,781 shares of Vyyo’s common stock for 17 cents per share. As of Wednesday, the number of outstanding shares represented 53 percent of the shares that are not held by Vision Acquisition or its affiliates as of Sept. 15, and includes debt and equity.

Norcross, Ga.-based Vyyo announced that its 3 GHz spectrum overlay was in use by Cox Communications last year (story here), but the company has struggled to find additional cable operator customers. In March of last year, Vyyo announced that Singapore-based Starhub was using its 3 Ghz spectrum overlay.

In January, Vyyo shuttered its research and development facilities in Israel, as well as laid off 70 employees in that country.

And this:

Davidi Gilo, has more than 20 years of technology and business expertise and a proven track record of innovation and execution in identifying and fostering the growth of emerging trends and technologies including DSP chips, cell phones, medical information technology and broadband networks...During the last 20 years he created over $4 billion in shareholder value and raised approximately $3 billion in equity and debt to his various business ventures.

Okay, that's business, or part of it. What interested me?

Well, I am a graduate of the Gilo Center at the Hebrew University for my MA studies.

Here:

The Gilo Center for Citizenship, Democracy and Civic Education at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem was founded in October 2001. The Center's establishment and activity is made possible by the collaboration and generosity of the following supporting institutions: The Gilo Family Foundation

How involved philanthropically politically involved is Gilo?

Here:

Davidi Gilo Contribution List in 2008

$2,300 09/26/2008 G SCHAKOWSKY FOR CONGRESS - Democrat
$2,300 09/26/2008 G BERKOWITZ FOR CONGRESS - Democrat
$2,300 09/21/2008 G MASSA FOR CONGRESS - Democrat
$1,300 09/21/2008 G DARCY BURNER FOR CONGRESS - Democrat
$2,300 09/20/2008 G SESTAK FOR CONGRESS - Democrat
$2,300 09/20/2008 G TOM ALLEN FOR SENATE - Democrat
$2,300 09/20/2008 G JEFF MERKLEY FOR OREGON - Democrat
$1,300 09/20/2008 G HALVORSON FOR CONGRESS - Democrat
$2,300 08/27/2008 P MADIA FOR U S CONGRESS - Democrat Farm Labor
$2,300 06/30/2008 G SHULMAN FOR CONGRESS - Democrat
$1,000 06/30/2008 G HALVORSON FOR CONGRESS - Democrat
$2,500 06/30/08 P DEMOCRATIC SENATORIAL CAMPAIGN COMMITTEE
$2,300 06/30/2008 P STEVE COHEN FOR CONGRESS - Democrat
$2,300 06/30/2008 P OBAMA FOR AMERICA - Democrat
$1,000 06/30/2008 G KILROY FOR CONGRESS - Democrat
$1,000 06/30/2008 G JSTREETPAC
$1,000 06/30/2008 G JSTREETPAC
$2,300 06/30/2008 G JSTREETPAC
$1,000 06/30/2008 P JSTREETPAC
$2,300 06/30/2008 P JSTREETPAC
$1,000 06/29/2008 P DARCY BURNER FOR CONGRESS - Democrat
$5,000 02/25/2008 P JSTREETPAC
$5,000 12/31/2007 P JSTREETPAC

And that's just 2008. There's more there:

2006 Transaction Count/Amount 1/$26,000
2004 Transaction Count/Amount 7/$25,000
2002 Transaction Count/Amount 5/$5,000
2000 Transaction Count/Amount 19/$1,127,500

So, he mixes business with pleasure:

On October 11, 2000 Gilo convened a press conference to proclaim the inauguration of offices in Israel, funded by $100 million of his own money.

The fund's philosophy is simple. "We believe people are the key to all successful endeavors...We also work with people we like," he said...He was expected to be a new daddy for Israel's promising community of hungry startups.

Yet somehow the dream seems to have gone awry, at least for said startups. Somehow he seems not to be investing less in Israel's fledgling firms, and more in companies affiliated with him or his family.

These were the people helped him turn into one of Israel's richest entrepreneurs, by selling DSP Communications to Intel Corporation (Nasdaq:INTC) for $1.6 billion in 1999.

...Advocate Avi Fischer, chairman of Gilo Ventures, is a childhood friend of Gilo. He is a managing partner at the Fischer, Bahar and Chen law offices, and has advised several of Gilo's companies since 1985. Fischer served as a director at DSP Group, and served for seven years as a director at Vyyo (Nasdaq:VYYO), another of Gilo's companies. He also serves as co-chairman of the Ganden Holdings investment company, which is controlled by Israeli businessman Nochi Dankner.

Ilan Judkiewicz, a high-ranking official in the Gilo group, will be running Gilo Ventures' operations in Israel. But he doesn't work out of the company's offices in Daniel Frisch Street of Tel Aviv. He's moved to Cupertino, Califonia.

...the Israeli offices of Gilo Ventures seem to be bereft of life. The office was supposed to employ three or four people. But its chief job seems to be maintaining the troubled companies Gilo is busy reviving

.

I am going to stop now but it is obvious that with J Street, there is more that meets the eye.



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(*)

Gilo Ventures is a venture capital firm that seeks companies positioned for high growth technology markets with a US $1+ billion market potential. It prefers to invest in companies with proprietary technology. It also considers companies that possess first mover advantage and the potential to capture significant market share quickly. Gilo Ventures focus primarily on technologies and services for carrying and managing broadband communication over various platforms including fiber optics, wireless, copper. Its investments typically range in size from US $250,000 to $20 million.