Saar Wilf (

Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...

: סער וילף; born 1974 or 1975) is an Israeli entrepreneur, businessman,

angel investor An angel investor (also known as a business angel, informal investor, angel funder, private investor, or seed investor) is an individual who provides capital to a business or businesses, including startups, usually in exchange for convertible de ...

and

poker player Poker is a family of comparing card games in which players wager over which hand is best according to that specific game's rules. It is played worldwide, with varying rules in different places. While the earliest known form of the game was ...

who provides capital for

start-up A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship includes all new businesses including self-employment and businesses that do not intend ...

businesses.

Career

Wilf, like his older sister

Einat Wilf Einat Wilf (; born 11 December 1970) is a former Israeli politician who served as a member of the Knesset for Independence and the Labor Party. Biography Einat Wilf was born in Jerusalem and raised in a Labor Zionist family. She studied at the ...

, attended high school at the

Hebrew University Secondary School Hebrew University High School (), commonly known as ''Leyada'' (literally "next to"), is a semi-private high school in Jerusalem, established in 1935 by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The school is located next to the Givat Ram campus of th ...

. Wilf served in the

Israeli Defense Forces Israeli may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the State of Israel * Israelis, citizens or permanent residents of the State of Israel * Modern Hebrew, a language * ''Israeli'' (newspaper), published from 2006 to 2008 * Guni Israeli (b ...

' intelligence

Unit 8200 Unit 8200 (, ''Yehida shmone matayim'' "Unit eight two-hundred") is an Israeli Intelligence Corps unit of the Israel Defense Forces responsible for clandestine operation, collecting signal intelligence (SIGINT) and code decryption, counteri ...

. He initially worked as a developer and programmer. Wilf's first start-up, in 1997, was

Trivnet.com Saar Wilf (Hebrew language, Hebrew: סער וילף; born 1974 or 1975) is an Israeli entrepreneur, businessman, angel investor and Poker, poker player who provides capital for start-up businesses. Career Wilf, like his older sister Einat Wilf, ...

, a payments company, which was sold to

Gemalto Gemalto was an international digital security company providing software applications, secure personal devices such as smart cards and tokens, e-wallets and managed services. It was formed in June 2006 by the merger of two companies, Axalto and ...

in 2010. His second start-up was

Fraud Sciences Ltd Saar Wilf (Hebrew language, Hebrew: סער וילף; born 1974 or 1975) is an Israeli entrepreneur, businessman, angel investor and Poker, poker player who provides capital for start-up businesses. Career Wilf, like his older sister Einat Wilf, ...

, which was acquired by

eBay eBay Inc. ( , often stylized as ebay) is an American multinational e-commerce company based in San Jose, California, that allows users to buy or view items via retail sales through online marketplaces and websites in 190 markets worldwide. ...

through

PayPal PayPal Holdings, Inc. is an American multinational financial technology company operating an online payments system in the majority of countries that support E-commerce payment system, online money transfers; it serves as an electronic alter ...

in 2008 for $169 million, where he worked until 2010. By 2017, he invested in about 15 companies. His companies have included ClarityRay (acquired by

Yahoo Yahoo (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web portal that provides the search engine Yahoo Search and related services including My Yahoo, Yahoo Mail, Yahoo News, Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Sports, y!entertainment, yahoo!life, an ...

), Pointgrab, Deep Optics. and CallApp, Crosswise (acquired by

Oracle An oracle is a person or thing considered to provide insight, wise counsel or prophetic predictions, most notably including precognition of the future, inspired by deities. If done through occultic means, it is a form of divination. Descript ...

), Supersonic (merged with IronSource). As of 2014, Wilf was the

chairman The chair, also chairman, chairwoman, or chairperson, is the presiding officer of an organized group such as a board, committee, or deliberative assembly. The person holding the office, who is typically elected or appointed by members of the gro ...

Wikiwand Wikiwand, formerly stylized as WikiWand, is a commercial proprietary interface developed for viewing Wikipedia articles. Its interface includes a sidebar menu displaying the table of contents, a navigation bar, personalized links to other la ...

, a mobile app and web browser extension for Wikipedia. Bzigo, that he co-founded in 2016, has developed a machine which scans a room for

mosquitos Mosquitoes, the Culicidae, are a family of small flies consisting of 3,600 species. The word ''mosquito'' (formed by '' mosca'' and diminutive ''-ito'') is Spanish and Portuguese for ''little fly''. Mosquitoes have a slender segmented body, ...

and tells

mobile phones A mobile phone or cell phone is a portable telephone that allows users to make and receive calls over a radio frequency link while moving within a designated telephone service area, unlike fixed-location phones ( landline phones). This radio ...

where they are, describing itself as "an

Iron Dome Iron Dome () is an Israeli mobile all-weather air defense system, developed by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and Israel Aerospace Industries. The system is designed to intercept and destroy short-range rockets and artillery shells fired f ...

for mosquitos". In 2020, its machines were scheduled for delivery to customers in 2021. In 2017, Wilf founded Rootclaim, which uses probabilistic analysis to predict the likely solution to questions about controversial events such as war crimes, murder cases, and airline crashes. For example, it attributes the 2013

Ghouta chemical attack The Ghouta chemical attack was a chemical attack carried out by the forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, in the early hours of 21 August 2013 in Ghouta, Syria during the Syrian civil war. Two opposition-controlled areas in the subur ...

Syria Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...

to the Syrian opposition and the downing of

Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (MH17/MAS17) was a scheduled passenger flight from Amsterdam Airport Schiphol, Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur International Airport, Kuala Lumpur that was shot down by Russian-backed forces with a Buk missile system, Bu ...

to the Russia-aligned Donetsk People's Republic. In 2018, he founded payments system

Quahl Quahl ( ), formerly known as Initiative Q, was an attempt to create a new payment network and digital currency. It was created by Israeli entrepreneur Saar Wilf, who previously founded Fraud Sciences, a payment security company acquired by PayP ...

(originally known as Initiative Q), backed by American economist

Lawrence H. White Lawrence Henry White (born November 27, 1954) is an American economics professor at George Mason University who teaches graduate level monetary theory and policy. He is considered an authority on the history and theory of free banking. His writin ...

and branded a "

pyramid scheme A pyramid scheme is a business model which, rather than earning money (or providing Return on investment, returns on investments) by sale of legitimate product (business), products to an end consumer, mainly earns money by recruiting new members ...

with grandiose ideas" by the ''

Financial Times The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and also published digitally that focuses on business and economic Current affairs (news format), current affairs. Based in London, the paper is owned by a Jap ...

.'' However, Mashable disagreed explaining "The important bit is that there's no money changing hands here". Seven million users had signed up within a year. Wilf donated $100,000 to fund the

Brain Preservation Foundation The Brain Preservation Foundation is an American non-profit organization with the goal of promoting validated scientific research and technical services development in the field of whole brain preservation for long-term static storage, as well as ...

Prize, which was won on 13 March 2018. Wilf has been playing Poker since 2005, with career earnings of over $1.3 Million as of 2023.

References

External links

Hendon Mob profileWSOP profile
Israeli poker players Israeli businesspeople Israeli inventors Living people Date of birth missing (living people) Place of birth missing (living people) 1974 births Unit 8200 alumni Hebrew University Secondary School alumni {{israel-business-bio-stub