Yoav Oz and the art of arriving at the right moment

Yoav Oz went into a sportswear store to buy a birthday present for his partner. He came out with the gift and something for himself. A sales associate had helped him make sense of the choices. In Rep AI’s telling of its beginnings, this unremarkable retail success supplied the question that would occupy its future CEO: why was getting that kind of help so difficult online?

There is something pleasing about a technology company whose origin involves someone doing their job properly. The birthday present had acquired a travelling companion. A customer needed guidance; another person supplied it. The extra purchase was evidence that the encounter had worked. The helpfulness had commercial consequences.

Oz tried to find the same experience on his laptop. The contrast stayed with him. Online stores could display the goods, accept the payment and deliver the package. The conversation between uncertainty and purchase was harder to reproduce. His business would grow around that interval, where a willing customer can still decide to leave.

01Before the sales floor, the advertisement

Oz’s career had already taken him through the business of attracting attention. He co-founded Spotad, an advertising technology company, and served as its chief operating officer. Its work involved automated mobile advertising, putting software to work on the problem of finding relevant audiences. Spotad was eventually acquired by ironSource.

He also spent time helping other people get started. His background includes directing the LaunchPad entrepreneurial program at Tel Aviv University’s entrepreneurship center. His public professional record lists managing the university’s 2013 Innovation Day, including a startup avenue with 42 ventures. Before asking merchants to trust an unfamiliar product, he had worked around founders trying to make unfamiliar ideas intelligible.

Advertising and retail assistance sit at different points in the same journey. An advertisement can persuade someone to visit; the destination then has to justify the trip. Oz’s move into shopping software brought him closer to the point where interest has to become a decision. A beautifully acquired visitor can still have a very ordinary question.

02Starting over, a continent away

His earlier company also took him somewhere his existing reputation could do less of the work. Moving to China meant unfamiliar business customs, a language barrier and the pressure of delivering on an expansion he had advocated. He later described himself as an “anonymous entrepreneur.” Even his name acquired a local replacement.

In his account, the board gave him only 5 percent of the budget he requested. After 18 months, he says, the company secured major deals with Baidu and Tencent. The numbers belong to his recollection of the experience. What comes through is the discomfort of beginning again after having already earned a position elsewhere.

An expansion plan is tidy on paper. In another country, its assumptions become appointments, negotiations and occasions for misunderstanding. The founder has to discover which habits travel and which ones require translation. Oz’s story has the useful inconvenience of making persistence sound like work: a long period spent making the next conversation possible.

“anonymous entrepreneur”

Yoav Oz, recalling his move to China

That episode gives his current interest in context a personal resonance. It would be too neat to make one experience explain an entire company. Still, the connection is suggestive. Knowing what someone wants requires understanding something about the situation they are in. Familiarity with your own product only gets you part of the way.

03A partnership with a previous address

Rep brought Oz together with Shauli Mizrahi, a friend whose experience included leading research and development at Browsi. The relationship had a considerable head start on the business. Oz says they had known each other for more than 15 years and had been roommates for roughly five. A shared home offers fewer opportunities to maintain a flawless founder persona.

Their professional backgrounds gave the partnership two useful perspectives: Oz’s experience building and expanding a business, and Mizrahi’s work with software that interprets behavior. The retail problem asked for both. A store assistant has to judge when to approach, then know enough to make the conversation worthwhile. Writing fluent replies addresses only part of that job.

The name Rep is short for representative. It is a modest word for the assignment. Oz’s case for it begins with the person who has arrived ready to consider a purchase and has encountered too much reading, too little guidance or a conversation that starts without any knowledge of the browsing that came before it.

The appeal of this idea is easy to understand without treating every conversation as a guaranteed sale. Someone may need advice and still decide against buying. A relevant answer can also make that decision easier. For a merchant, the harder question is whether the assistance earns its place in the experience, rather than merely occupying a corner of the screen.

His working circle also includes investor Avishai Sam Bitton, whose Every Whisky podcast featured Oz in February 2023. Bitton described meeting him at the 8fig offices seven months earlier and subsequently investing in Rep. The conversation came with a named accompaniment: Glenfiddich 14-Year-Old Bourbon Barrel Reserve. Startup relationships often acquire a vocabulary of funnels and introductions; this one also acquired a drinks list. It is a small, sociable detail in a career that depends on persuading people to spend time with an idea before its outcome is settled.

04Giving someone their first chance

Oz has a similarly practical account of the workplace he wanted. He remembers having the willingness to work without the years of experience employers expected. At Rep, he says, he chose to put passion and drive early in the hiring decision and give people room to develop. The memory of being overlooked became a management preference.

His examples are specific: data scientists joining support calls, developers taking part in demos, people who began as juniors growing into responsibility. This is his description of the culture he has tried to create. It suggests a founder who wants technical work to stay close to the people using it, and who sees opportunity as something a manager can actively provide.

There is a cost to that approach. A first chance needs attention after the offer letter. Autonomy becomes useful when someone has enough support to exercise it. The appealing part of Oz’s account is the emphasis on people becoming capable through the work. Experience has to be made somewhere; employers occasionally forget their own role in manufacturing it.

05The people on the other side of the check

Money brings another set of relationships into a founder’s working life. In August 2024, Rep announced $8.2 million in funding led by Osage Venture Partners. The announcement named Oryzn Capital and Flashpoint Venture Capital as participants. It also said more than 500 merchants worldwide were using the product at that point, a dated company-reported milestone.

The investment gave the retail thesis a larger audience and the company more resources to pursue it. Osage’s explanation of its decision highlighted the combination of Oz’s operational background and Mizrahi’s technical experience. For Oz, the earlier company was now part of the case for backing the next one. Starting again did not require pretending he was starting without history.

His public fundraising advice asks founders to take investor selection seriously. He recommends approaching demanding investors for the quality of their feedback, and looking for agreement about the direction of the business. A pleasant meeting has limited value if each side leaves imagining a different company. The check is a beginning with an unusually formal signature.

On How I Raised It in July 2025, Oz discussed raising US capital for a company outside the United States, organizing investors into tiers and checking alignment. These are the less photogenic decisions underneath a funding announcement. They determine whose judgment a founder will be hearing when a difficult decision arrives.

In May 2026, Rep announced another $6.2 million, led by Silicon Road Ventures, with participation from Osage, Flashpoint and Zendesk. The company described the financing as a strategic follow-on. Its ambitions now covered more of the shopping journey, connecting assistance before a purchase with the support that comes after it.

That broader plan still has to pass the small test that interested Oz in the first place. Can the customer get useful help? Joining sales and support in a single system is an organizational ambition. For the person shopping, the result is experienced one answer at a time. A larger product has to remain attentive to a small encounter.

06An appointment with the ordinary

Oz’s description of his day includes another kind of scheduling. In February 2025, he said he walked his dog at 5:30 a.m. without his phone, reserved evening hours for family and returned to work later to accommodate US business hours from Israel. The calendar had to account for several people’s needs, including his own household’s.

The detail feels appropriate for a founder whose product depends on choosing when to interrupt. A phone left behind briefly is a boundary with a very simple interface. It also gives the story a scale beyond investor meetings and product releases: a dog still expects to be walked, however promising the market may look.

Oz has imagined shopping assistance extending into physical stores through customers’ phones. The ambition returns him to the place that supplied the original question. Whether the answer arrives from a person nearby or software on a screen, its usefulness will depend on what it understands about the moment. Somewhere between looking and leaving, a customer may welcome a little help.