Saar Wilf is an Israeli innovator, 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 for a business or businesses start-up, usually in exchange for convertible debt or owners ...

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, however in some places the rules may vary. While the earliest known form of the game wa ...

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 refers to all new businesses, including self-employment and businesses that never intend t ...

businesses.

Career

Wilf served in the Israeli Defense Forces' intelligence Unit 8200. He initially worked as a developer and programmer. Wilf's first start-up, in 1997, was Trivnet.com, a payments company, which was sold to Gemalto in 2010. His second start-up was

Fraud Sciences Ltd Saar Wilf is an Israeli innovator, businessman, angel investor and poker player who provides capital for start-up businesses. Career Wilf served in the Israeli Defense Forces' intelligence Unit 8200. He initially worked as a developer and progr ...

, which was acquired by eBay through PayPal 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), Pointgrab,

Deep Optics Deep or The Deep may refer to: Places United States * Deep Creek (Appomattox River tributary), Virginia * Deep Creek (Great Salt Lake), Idaho and Utah * Deep Creek (Mahantango Creek tributary), Pennsylvania * Deep Creek (Mojave River tributary), ...

. and

CallApp CallApp is a mobile app offering caller ID, call blocking and call recording. It gives background information about the entities behind incoming or outgoing calls by utilizing the user's community-generated content and social networking servic ...

, Crosswise (acquired by

Oracle An oracle is a person or agency considered to provide wise and insightful counsel or prophetic predictions, most notably including precognition of the future, inspired by deities. As such, it is a form of divination. Description The word '' ...

), Supersonic (merged with

IronSource ironSource Ltd. is an Israeli software company that focuses on developing technologies for app monetization and distribution, with its core products focused on the app economy. Among others, ironSource was chosen as one of the '20 hottest star ...

). As of 2014, Wilf was the

chairman The chairperson, also chairman, chairwoman or chair, 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 grou ...

Wikiwand Wikiwand, formerly stylized as WikiWand, is a 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 languages, new typ ...

, a mobile app and web browser extension for Wikipedia.

Bzigo Bzigo is a technology start-up company that develops autonomous devices for a pest-free life. Its first product detects and locates mosquitoes, and future products will both detect and eliminate mosquitoes and other pests autonomously. The company ...

, that he co-founded in 2016, has developed a machine which scans a room for mosquitos and tells

mobile phones A mobile phone, cellular phone, cell phone, cellphone, handphone, hand phone or pocket phone, sometimes shortened to simply mobile, cell, or just phone, is a portable telephone that can make and receive calls over a radio frequency link whil ...

where they are, describing itself as "an Iron Dome for mosquitos". In 2020, its machines were scheduled for delivery to customers in 2021. In 2017, Wilf founded

Rootclaim Saar Wilf is an Israeli innovator, businessman, angel investor and poker player who provides capital for start-up businesses. Career Wilf served in the Israeli Defense Forces' intelligence Unit 8200. He initially worked as a developer and progr ...

, which uses

probabilistic analysis Probability is the branch of mathematics concerning numerical descriptions of how likely an event is to occur, or how likely it is that a proposition is true. The probability of an event is a number between 0 and 1, where, roughly speaking ...

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 warfare, 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 Syrian opposition, oppos ...

Syria Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...

to the Syrian opposition and the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 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 PayPal ...

(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, monetary theory and policy. He is considered an authority on the history and theory of free ba ...

and branded a "

pyramid scheme A pyramid scheme is a business model that recruits members via a promise of payments or services for enrolling others into the scheme, rather than supplying investments or sale of products. As recruiting multiplies, recruiting becomes quickly im ...

with grandiose ideas" by the '' Financial Times.'' 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 March 13, 2018. Wilf has been playing Poker since 2005, with career earnings of over $1.3 Million as of 2023.

References

Israeli poker players Israeli businesspeople Israeli inventors Living people Date of birth missing (living people) Place of birth missing (living people) 1974 births {{israel-business-bio-stub