Dov Moran (; born 1955) is an Israeli entrepreneur, inventor and investor, best known as the inventor of the USB memory stick, and one of the most prominent Israeli hi-tech leaders.
Biography
Dov Moran was born in Ramat Gan, Israel, to a family of Holocaust survivors who immigrated to Israel from Poland. His father, Baruch Mintz, came from a well-off family from Krosno. The only Mintz family members who managed to survive the Holocaust were Dov's father and grandfather who began a new life in Israel. Dov's mother, Bina Gever, immigrated to Israel with her family who escaped Blonie.
His interest in technology was obvious from his childhood days. At the age of ten he used to order electronic components and digital watch parts from MAD magazine, with the intention to create new improved devices, however, as he later testified, no significant results were achieved. In the following years, his curiosity and talent started to lead to breakthroughs. At the age of 16 he was sent to an annual course in computers held in Tel-Aviv University. Back then, in order to write a program you needed to mark cards dedicated to that with a pen. After three months of struggling to deal with that system, he wrote his first program. His programming skills improved while obtaining a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering (with honors) at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa. That was when he decided "to start his own company”.
Moran served in the Israeli Navy for seven years and was commander of its advanced microprocessor department. Prior to becoming an entrepreneur, Moran was an independent consultant in the computer industry.
Business career
Moran formed M-Systems in 1989, a pioneer in the flash data storage market. The company invented the USB flash drive (DiskOnKey), the FlashDisk (DiskOnChip) as well as several other innovative flash data storage devices. Under Moran's leadership, M-Systems grew to $US1 billion revenue within 18 years, and at the end of 2006 it was acquired by SanDisk Corp (NSDQ: SNDK) for $US1.6 billion.
After the sale of M-Systems, Moran founded Modu, a company with a new modular phone concept, which eventually sold its patents to Google in 2011. These patents are the basis for Google's modular phone project, called Project Ara. After Modu was sold to Google, more than 30 hi-tech innovative companies were founded by Modu's ex-employees.
During his time at Modu, Moran was also the chairman of Tower Semiconductor, a developer and manufacturer of semiconductors and integrated circuits. During his tenure, he turned the struggling company around towards profitability. Moran was also chairman of Biomas, a developer of pharmaceuticals.
Inventions
Moran has been involved with a number of inventions, mostly in the field of infrastructure technologies. He says he has filed over 40 patents and patent applications. Inventions he's been involved with include: USB flash drive (DiskOnKey)- small Flash memory device the FlashDisk (DiskOnChip) Modu 's revolutionary modular phone - the basis for Google's modular phone Project Ara Lightest mobile phone - Modu (weighs 40.1 g) world held the record for the world's lightest mobile phone. Smartype - revolutionary smart keyboard Comigo's smart interactive TV system - patented hardware and software
Investments
In January 2015, after several years of angel investing, Moran founded Grove ventures, a $US100 million venture capital fund primarily investing in early-stage startups with cutting-edge technologies such as semi-conductor, sensors, artificial intelligence and Digital Health. In October 2017, Grove Ventures raised $110 million in commitments. In February 2020, Grove Ventures closed a second fund with $120 million in commitments.
Companies he invested in or launched include: Consumer Physics, A thumb-sized spectrometer which acts as "digital materials analyzer", enabling a user to identify products' source, freshness, ingredients, the mix of materials and nutrition value. Sensible Medical Innovation Ltd., Absolute lung fluid monitor based on sensing and monitoring technology providing data for the management and treatment of several chronic medical conditions. GlucoMe, develops a blood glucose meter that provides an interface to the cloud through a phone or tablet to allow data gathering and analysis, alerts and patient monitoring. Geneformics, focused on computing for genomics (DNA sequencing). Geneformics aims to provide savings in the storage, communications and cloud processing of DNA sequencing. RapidAPI, a company that developed application programming interfaces (APIs). In addition to several investments made by the fund.