The Eldov Group LLC was established in 2019 with the objective of investing in early startup companies as well as fueling organic growth in areas such as biomedical informatics, scientific research and development, advanced analytics, cloud computing, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, security, and more…
The mission of The Eldov Group is to support early start-up firms with solutions at the intersection of cutting edge technologies and public health.
Dov and Elma, the co-founders of The Eldov Group, are entrepreneurs who know first hand how to build, scale and develop a company. They founded Washington DC based Dovel Technologies Group LLC. In 2019, with revenues exceeding $200 million, they sold their majority holdings in Dovel to private equity, and in October 2021 Dovel was acquired by Guidehouse.
Dov and Elma are hands-on entrepreneurs and business owners with significant experience in starting, building and scaling large projects, large IT systems as well as companies from start-up to full maturity.
Elma and Dov are immigrants from The Netherlands and Israel; they came to the US together in 1982, and have realized the American Dream. They have two adult children, one granddaughter, and an 8 year old Golden Retriever. They are avid hikers and adventure travelers, and didn’t hesitate to summit Kilimanjaro, visit gorillas and grizzlies, and, together, did the polar jump in Antarctica. They reside in Bethesda Maryland.
Elma Levy, Principal & Co-Founder
As a Co-founder and Principal of The Eldov Group, LLC. Ms. Levy provides strategic guidance to the organization, particularly as it pertains to corporate governance, financial management and tactical development. Her firsthand experience with all phases of the organizational life cycle, from start-up through full maturity, and the challenges of each phase, allows her to provide a unique perspective as a business mentor and leadership coach.
Prior to co-founding The Eldov Group, Ms. Levy was the co-founder of Dovel Technologies a Government contracting firm in the Health IT space. At Dovel, Ms. Levy was responsible for establishing and scaling the corporate foundation that supported the initial organic growth and in the later phases, the growth through acquisition. Her keen understanding of leadership styles and strengths, and her strategic vision and methodical approaches to process, allowed Dovel to grow from a 2-person bootstrapped company to a company with over $200M in annual revenues at time of change-of-control in 2019.
After the transition of Dovel to Private Equity, Ms. Levy focused on her next venture, Coach to Strength, LLC a company that provides Leadership Coaching and Business Mentoring, mostly to leaders in the start-up and early ‘rapid growth’ phase of their ventures. Prior to the 2021 transaction, Ms. Levy was a member of the Dovel Board of Directors, and currently she is the Chair of the Board of Montgomery Hospice and serves on several Advisory Boards.
Ms. Levy is a member of the GWU School of Engineering National Advisory Council, as well as the external advisory council of the GWU SEAS Institute of Women in Engineering; she develops and presents workshops and professional development sessions for SCORE; previously she served as a mentor to entrepreneurs for SCORE, and she served twice as a Lean Startup/NSF ICorps mentor and a mentor in Residence at the GWU Innovation & Entrepreneurship Center.
At Eldov, Ms. Levy is uniquely qualified to assess and support the credibility and validity of a start-up company’s Leadership team’s strengths and dynamics, as well as the organizations’ corporate governance and infrastructure. Her past career as a Nurse Practitioner gives her a sound understanding of the medical and public health impact of a technical solution.
Dov Levy, Principal & Co-Founder
As a Co-founder and Principal of The Eldov Group, LLC. Mr. Levy provides strategic guidance to the organization, particularly as it pertains to involvement with companies that work with cutting-edge IT solutions involving Cloud Computing, AI, Machine Learning, AWS, etc.
His expertise in the IT domain is well known and recognized in the industry. At Dovel Technologies, a company he co-founded and recently sold, Mr. Levy was the technical catalyst for the company’s growth. His vision and knack for applying leading technologies in thoughtful ways helped the company evolve from a small 2-person business to over $200M in annual revenues at the time of sale.
Over the past 3 decades, Mr. Levy served as the CTO, Chief Technologist, and Chief Technical Architect for some of the US Government’s largest mission critical solutions, such as EDGAR (SEC) , DTS (DoD), and more; at the time of his tenure each program implemented solutions on the forefront of technology. Today Mr. Levy serves as Sr. Adviser to the GrantSolutions.gov team (HHS) in a large-scale implementation involving cloud computing, event sourcing, machine learning, Artificial intelligence and blockchain.
Mr. Levy is highly sought after to perform independent assessments, provide technical expertise, and share insights on how to effectively utilize technology to solve complex business challenges. With respect to the US Government market, not only is Mr. Levy highly regarded, but because of his long tenure in the industry, he is also well connected and well known.
At Eldov, Mr. Levy is uniquely qualified to assess the credibility and validity of a start-up company’s IT solutions, approaches and infrastructure, as well as to support the start-up team with guidance and introductions. His in-depth understanding of technology provides him with a sound understanding of the technical foundation of a medical/health solution.
Partners in Live and Work
In this book, Dov and Elma describe their journey from the early beginning, as first-gen immigrants coming to the US as students from Israel and The Netherlands, through their successful venture as entrepreneurs, and beyond, as hikers and adventure travelers.
The book tells the story of partners in life and work who overcome professional and personal challenges, have the self-awareness to recognize their strengths and ‘not so strengths’, and successfully transition from one role to another as they scale and mature the company. Described by readers as: “one of the best business books ever” for its style and content.
Recent Publications
Current Investments
In January 2020, Dov & Elma visited several start-ups in Israel to determine which companies met their criteria for investment partnership.
Their evaluation criteria were:
The solution has to focus on improving health and quality of life
There needs to be both a public health as well as a strong IT component to the solution
A strong and trust-worthy leadership team
Below is their description of the companies they selected:
The mission of Owlytics really resonated with us: to increase quality of life through early fall detection and risk assessment.
During her healthcare career, as a home health nurse, Elma visited patients in their own homes as well as in retirement communities, and she saw the impact on the quality of life of people who were no longer able to live independently due to the risk for falls. We also had our personal experiences with aging parents, and we know how important it is to maintain an independent lifestyle. Not only is it a quality of life issue, it’s an economic issue as the consequence of a fall are often devastating, requiring hospitalization, surgery etc.
The real time remote patient monitoring and assessment capabilities of the Owlytics solution allow providers to take action before a small issue becomes a large problem, thereby protecting patients’ independent living, their health and sometimes their lives.
We went to visit Gill, Co-Founder & CEO, and his team in their offices in Herzliya, and had an impressive meeting. Afterwards, Gill took us to the Fall Laboratory at Ichilov Hospital to hear about the work being done, and the progress made, in early fall detection. The next morning, we had breakfast by the beach in Tel Aviv with Gill and one of his Board Members, Mike Berman.
All in all, we were very impressed with Gill and his team, and the mission of Owlytics, and we are proud to have been accepted as part of the team.
LiberDi
LiberDi’s mission is to improve the quality of life for ESRD (end stage renal disease) patients who use peritoneal dialysis (PD), by increasing independence and reducing infections. Clearly a significant public health mission! This PD machine is portable which allows for greater independence and, therefor, quality of life; it literally fits in a backpack and allows the patient to go hiking, something the founders are particularly proud of, and we are impressed by. The solution includes cloud based software which allows the provider to, remotely, make treatment assessments based on real time data.
We were really impressed with the leadership team, Hezi, Shai and Hagai; all three leaders have the background and expertise to make this a very successful company, and each of them is a quiet, competent and humble person, who knows what he is doing and doesn’t make false promises.
Clearly this company is right where we want to put our resources and support, and we are very proud to play a small role in what surely will be a very successful endeavor.
Dome Therapeutics LLC
We first learned about Dome Therapeutics LLC. and the two amazing founders from our friend Dr. Jim Liew, Associate Professor of Finance at Johns Hopkins Carey Business School; Jim made the introduction to the two founders: Dr. Q and Jordan Green, and after one Zoom conversation we knew that Dome was the kind of company that fits our investment objectives: early start-up, revolutionary solution, amazing team, and potential for great benefit to the public.
Dome’s mission is to develop a new and revolutionary stem-cell based treatment modality to fight one of the more terminal forms of brain cancers: Glioblastoma. This condition accounts for 40-50% of all brain tumors, affects approximately 18000 people a year, has a median survival rate of 15 months, and a five-year survival rate of less than 5%; there is no curative treatment for this condition. As a brain surgeon, Dr. Q. sees this condition all too often, causing him great frustration and sadness because of his inability to cure these patients with the current treatment modalities available to him.
We are very proud to be part of this amazing team, led by Dr. Alfredo Quiñones-Hinojosa, MD, William J. and Charles H. Mayo Professor, and Chair, Neurologic Surgery at Mayo Clinic Jacksonville, Florida and Jordan Green, PhD, Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Ophthalmology, Oncology, Neurosurgery, MSE, ChemBE at Johns Hopkins Medicine. Despite the Covid restrictions we were able to meet in person with Jordan in Jim’s back yard over the summer, and we hope to be able to go down to Jacksonville sometime to meet Dr. Q. in person as well.
FeelBetter LTD
In August 2021 we were introduced, via Zoom, of course, to Liat Primor, the amazing CEO of FeelBetter LTD. This Israeli Start-up is developing an approach in care management that incorporates AI and ML, creating a targeted methodology that results in better outcome in less time for more people. Liat and her team have a combined deep background in Pharmacology, Geriatric Medicine, and cutting-edge technology. By employing highly specific assessment tools and questionnaires the FeelBetter solution provides early detection, with opportunity for early intervention, for those who most acutely need it, while monitoring patients with less acute conditions for any changes in their condition.
We are extremely proud to be able to support this amazing team, and we believe in the solution and its impact on healthcare; especially care of the elderly, more fragile and multi-pharma population. Not only does this solution meet our investment criteria of bringing high impact value to the field of healthcare, we are also very impressed with the maturity and rigorous discipline of the team.
Past involvement:
Dovel Technologies Group, LLC.
Dovel deserves a place in the Eldov portfolio of investments because of it’s focus on public health and emphasis on cutting edge technology. As of the 2021 transaction with Guidehouse we are no longer stakeholders of Dovel, however, the company will always have a special place in our heart. Dov continues his involvement as the Sr. Advisor to one of the largest programs in the Dovel portfolio, GrantSolutions.Gov.
Community Involvement & Philanthropy
Dov and Elma are the ultimate ‘first generation immigrants’; they came to the US together in their early 20’s with hardly any resources, but they had determination, resourcefulness, resilience, and a dream…
Over the years they raised two children and built a business from the ground up, all with very little support. Their life experience has thought them that luck is an important element to success, but also that the famous quote “Luck is where opportunity meets preparation” is very true.
They vowed to never forget where they came from; they know how important it is for successful lucky people to give back to the community by serving as mentors and role models, by providing financial support, and by serving as leaders.
Because of this, Dov and Elma are committed to continuing their involvement with the community through personal and financial involvement. In addition to one-on-one mentoring start up leaders and innovative students, they speak to groups and classes at the The George Washington University and Johns Hopkins University Carey Business School about entrepreneurship, leadership, networking and conflict resolution, as well as about their business and start-up experiences.
They are involved in, and/or actively support, the following organizations:
George Washington University School of Engineering National Advisory Council:
The National Advisory Council (NAC) assists the Dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science (SEAS) to review concerns within the school and works with the Dean to enhance the image and quality of the education offered to GW's engineering and applied science students.
Dov & Elma are members of the Advisory Council; in 2018 they were inducted in the GWU SEAS Hall of Fame and they were featured in the quarterly GWU SEAS Synergy newsletter.
Montgomery Hospice is the largest not for profit hospice in Montgomery County, with locations both in MC as well as Prince George’s County. The mission of the organization is to ‘gentle the journey through serious illness and loss with skill and compassion’.
Elma has been actively involved with MH since 2014; she served as a patient volunteer, as well as a Board member at several committees. She currently serves as the Board Chair (June 1, 2020 – May 31, 2022).
Jane Goodall Institute/National Geographic Society
In addition to supporting the JG Institute, Dov & Elma are major sponsors of the famous ‘Becoming Jane’ exhibit which is currently at the National Geographic Society in Washington DC, and is scheduled to travel to multiple domestic as well as global locations.
Service Core of Retired Executives (SCORE) DC
SCORE, a nonprofit organization, is dedicated to helping small businesses get off the ground, grow and achieve their goals through education and mentorship; since 1964, SCORE has educated more than 11 million entrepreneurs. SCORE provides free, confidential business advice through its volunteer network of 10,000+ business experts. Elma served as a volunteer mentor for SCORE for several years, and currently continues to stay engaged by developing and presenting workshops and through outreach activities to promote the organization and its mission.