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Acorns to Oaks is a group of 10 chief executive officers, investment bankers, investors and lawyers, predominantly from the United States and France. The four lawyers were members of the Chicago LawExchange firm of Gould & Ratner, the Paris LawExchange member firm of Ayache Salama & Associés and the Israeli LawExchange member firm of Israeli Ben-Zvi. 

This ensemble met in Tel Aviv for three days in late October and met with twenty technology Israeli companies or funds. The companies were predominantly high growth companies specializing either in business intelligence, medical devices or some other leading edge of technology for which Israel is well known. While a small handful of the companies were at the seed stage of development (alias, "acorns") and two behemoths, Microsoft and Teva, are certainly "oaks", most of the companies were in the middle and we refer to them as "eucalyptus". 

The purpose of the delegation and meetings were to forge better ties between the group and companies. The idea is that when they need to go to the U.S. or France to  establish a presence, buy businesses, sell product lines, raise capital or otherwise expand their distribution and sales efforts, these Israeli companies, which could also be represented by our partner in Israel, will have a credible and known network with whom to work.

This year's efforts build on the success of 2010's inaugural delegation. That visit has already resulted in two rounds of financing, one business plan development and one distribution relationship introduced and established.